


When the Sun Kisses the Sea

by Geertrui



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mermaid, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Crossdressing, Erik Has Feelings, Happy Ending, Illustrations, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, Shaving, Slow Build, Somnophilia, Soulmates, kind of, touch-starved Erik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-05-12 12:52:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 73,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5666749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geertrui/pseuds/Geertrui
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With every year the schism between the merfolk and the humans of Genosha's kingdom grows wider, stretched further by the hunting ships and their harpoons that swarm the oceans on only one mission. </p><p>Unmarried, Prince Lehnsherr holds little power in rectifying the shattered alliance with the people of the ocean; but when Erik is saved by a creature with eyes as blue as the sea from which he hails, he falls into the murky secrets and hidden past of his palace, uncovers the truth of Genosha's history, and slowly, steadily, finds his heart isn't something to hate. </p><p>Especially not when it's treasured by a mermaid like Charles.</p><p>**<i>Based on and featuring art by <a href="http://thacmis.tumblr.com/">Thacmis</a></i>**</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thacmis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thacmis/gifts).



> Gift for the lovely Thacmis, based on her [ Princess Ariel!Charles art + accompanying headcanon](http://thacmis.tumblr.com/post/136202871852/tuesday-princesscharles-ariel-more)! She inspired pretty much everything in this fic :3 Please check out the post and her beautiful art before reading! While this was meant to be a story based on _The Little Mermaid_ , it deviates quite a bit from the actual fairytale, but I hope it's still enjoyable! 
> 
> Dearest Thac, thank you so much for the prompt and for your beautiful sketches, for all your support, ideas, and the weeks we spent churning out headcanon after headcanon for this au; and, of course, for the beautiful Ariel!Charles that inspired all this mess <3 This fic really _wouldn't_ exist without you, and you wrote more for this than you know. Happy birthday again sweetpae  <3 Thanks for waiting~ ☆
> 
> (Art masterpost will be linked at the end :) )

When the ship had started to sink, with flames licking up masks and chasing along railings and bannisters, consuming rooms and leaving his men entrapped, Erik had flared his powers like the burst of a spark meeting oil. He danced his control over each harpoon flanking the starboard and port sides, gripping the buckles and clasps of anyone he could find still alive and pushing them into the pitch black sea, and hoped for a chance. Then, he dove from the wreck, and the freezing ocean hit him like glass.

There had been no metal in the water, and the scent of kerosene was heavy in the air and made him sick when he broke from the choppy surface, gasping into the smoke-filled night. There had been nothing to touch, nothing to hold onto or find or call to him, smoldering wood too far to swim to, barrels and crates caught in currents and slicked with black oil. Erik kicked his legs hard, forcing his shaking hands over the buttons of his coat, working his heels together in a feeble attempt to slide the knee-length boots from his calves. Between sinking below the surface in a moment of exhaustion and breaking from the water in harried panic, spitting and heaving, there had only been silence. There were no screams, no cries, the popping and cracking and groaning of his ship the only sound above; absolutely nothing below. Moonlight didn’t reach here. It was deathly quiet. It was peaceful.

Shutting his eyes had made no difference to the black around him, the icy water made him numb and still, and after a few moments there had been nothing to feel, no air to need. The panic stilled as he sank. And that, Erik thought, was that.

When he had awoken on the beach, foreign fingers combing through the tangles in his hair and tracing along his jawline and cheekbones, curiously tentative over the gentle fluttering of his pulse in his neck, Erik’s powers had wrapped around each shard of iron and ore in each stone and pebble embedded in the sand, flakes of copper calling to him from lost coins, strands of silver singing from pretty, delicate jewellery, and he relished the touch like he did the clear, clean air. When the bangle pressed against his cheek it burnt him like a brand, and with a gasp Erik’s eyes had shot open, the salt on his tongue parching his throat and making him heave. A soft noise of surprise registered in his mind, foreign and faraway, small hands coming to tilt his jaw to the side and push his shoulder, and Erik spat onto the sand and braced himself with a trembling arm.

For some inexplicable reason, Erik thought the words, _you are not alone._

His questions were half-formed and never escaped his mind, but that, Erik found, didn’t matter. A stream of purrs, clicks, and chirps interrupted his coughing, and when Erik turned back to look at the source of the sounds, the noises stopped, along with his own rasping breaths.

Erik picks on the memory now as he waits, sitting on the plush velvet stool outside the stall, idly running his powers over the swell of magnetism radiating off each little metal button and clasp on Charles’ suit. It feels like a lifetime ago now, but the moon has shifted through only one change. It feels like he died in the sinking, and he’s been born anew; brought back to life by a mermaid.

“How are you going in there?” he calls gently, lip curling in a half-smile when he hears Charles chirp in what Erik now knows to be agitation. _Words, outloud,_ he pushes, and grins at the huff he gets in reply.

“All right. I think.” Charles’ accent is strange, his voice clear as water and with the ability of filling Erik’s chest and rendering him breathless as if it were. “I do not know what do.” For a creature whose communication lies in telepathy, Erik can’t fault him his lack of language skills; in fact, if anything, it makes Charles all the more endearing. 

“May I come in?” Erik asks softly, rising from the chair and stepping the two paces across to the changing room. Its red curtain is heavy, and Erik counts each gold ring threading it to the beam overhead. Charles is headless to the customs and manners of the human world, an arbitrary soul, whimsical in nature, Erik found quick enough; but Erik’s the crown prince, manners are as intrinsic to him as his powers. 

That, and the pretence of propriety helps muffle Erik’s guilt.

Only just. It’s never fully muted.

Like the curtain weighs nothing Charles pulls it aside, glaring up at Erik with indignant fire in his eyes from under his curly fringe. Something shoots from the top of Erik’s spine and chases down his arms, tingling in his fingers. It’s followed by a wave of self-disgust.

Charles has the waistcoat on backwards, its buttons all matched wrong running down his spine, which Erik can spy in the mirror’s reflection. The jacket, a rich brown with gold lining the collar, hangs from the mannequin, forsaken in the mess, which Erik regards with a sigh. “How did you fit into only one leg of the britches.” It’s hardly even a question.

Charles fidgets, shuffling on the spot with his two legs tightly pressed against each other, reminiscent of his tail, which he lacks now in his human form. “Please help,” he asks softly, and Erik glances over his shoulder at the attendant standing by, staring forward and still as a statue.

He’s the crown prince. He could have the man beheaded. There’s nothing to fear.

Charles reaches forward and curls his fist around the gold-tasseled shoulder of Erik's coat, giving him little choice as he huffs and pulls Erik into the stall, using his grip for balance. “I do not like these,” Charles mutters, wriggling as Erik quickly shimmies the leggings down his scarred thighs, eyes averted, skin prickly and warm.

“Well, you must wear them,” Erik manages. At least that’s one positive thing Erik can count; Charles has yet to learn to pick on scratchiness of voice and strained words. They, along with their meaning, slip right past him. “As all proper gentlemen do.”

Charles looks up at him and there’s trust there filling the ocean-like blue of his eyes, fierce and full and it makes Erik feel itchy once more. “I am not gentlemen.” His eyes flit from Erik’s face down to his legs, and Charles studies intently for a moment before shaking his own breeches out.

“A gentleman,” Erik corrects as he turns around, offering privacy he knows from experience that Charles cares for little, if at all. “But you want to be, don’t you? You want to be like me, yes?”

No, Charles doesn’t. Charles is good. Charles is innocent. No one should want to be like this.

“A gentleman,” Charles repeats, copying Erik’s accent, his intonation, rolling the unfamiliar words around his mouth. The rustle of material fills the scant space and the quiet between them for a moment, before Charles touches him at his waist to get his attention. Even through his coat, his vest and his blouse, Erik can feel the minute vibrations that always flit from the tips of Charles’ fingers to settle under his skin whenever they touch - which seems to be ever increasing in frequency as the days tumble over. Erik looses a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.

“Are you better now?” He ignores the grittiness of his voice.

“What do you think?”

  
  

 

When Erik turns Charles is standing much closer than he was before, picking at his leggings and the coat. He turns his scrutiny up to find Erik’s assessment, eyes wide and imploring under his fringe. His eyes are the colour of the sea - not the night black ocean that filled Erik’s throat and lungs and pulled him down, but the part that laps at the shore, blue-green and sparkling with sunlight. Erik wonders if it’s a common ocular pigmentation amongst merpeople. The brown and gold jacket fits snuggly over Charles’ slight shoulders, tight around his small waist, and the long tails swish as Charles turns to look in the mirror. His legs are in their respective holes, tan breeches skin-tight, thighs thick with toned muscles. Erik avoids the full point where Charles’ thighs meet.

Charles is inspecting himself in the gold-framed mirror, and so he doesn’t see the way Erik looks at him. Part of Erik wonders if it would be best to simply cast Charles back into the ocean, for each day finds Erik further entangled in this mess, his emotions like spider-silk threads, so delicate yet so strong, wrapping him up and trapping him. He clears his throat, twines his fingers together to keep them from straying.  
  
_Beautiful._ “Handsome.” _I think I…_ “I’ll have the attendant size you for boots.” 

Charles beams at him. It doesn’t matter if he can hear Erik’s thoughts; he wouldn’t understand them. He wouldn’t understand why they’re wrong.

The attendant only looks at Erik when he clears his throat and steps near him, and when he does Erik is regarded with a cool neutrality that speaks nothing of what the man thinks. _You’re paranoid,_ a part of his mind spits at him. _You’ll give people a reason to look._

Charles is never still. It’s something Erik realised a week ago, after he’d pulled Charles’ fevered body from the shallows and dragged him up, leaving three long, jagged red streaks marring the orange sand, quickly washed away by the storm, and his tail had writhed in pain and spasms. It’s something he’s reminded of now as Charles sits for his boots, bouncing his knees, knocking his socked heels together, gazing down at his legs and at Erik as if he’s unsure either one exists.

It’s Erik who should be looking at Charles in that wide-eyed awe, feeling that tangle of emotions made up by intrigue, surprise, and curiosity. Any other man would have Charles locked and bound or skinned, studying and jotting down chicken-scratch notes in a pad for his journal; or, if he was benevolent, if he sided with the ocean like Erik is infamous for, he'd be setting about remedying the tense relationship the merpeople and the humans have had with each other ever since their ancient, malevolent queen was killed by his kind, before Erik was even born. He should be fixing things. As the crown prince, he’s lived and breathed diplomacy ever since he was a boy.

He wouldn’t want to keep the mermaid a secret. He wouldn’t want to keep the creature for himself.

“I’ll wait for you outside,” Erik tells Charles, leaning down and placing a hand on his shoulder. Charles only hums in return, attention captured by the tailor as he wraps a thin tape around Charles’ calves. Erik pauses for a moment, before twitching his fingers. The gold pins on Charles’ cuffs clip shut.  
  
Genosha’s kingdom is slight in comparison to the grand castles and cities stippled over the mainland, but Erik loves it all the more for its intimacy. Steam-powered carriages rattle and hiss as they crawl over the white-stoned streets, winding between stalls and tall buildings, all pressed side by side like the fat fish at market. The tram swims lazily through the crowd, its signature gold and green recognisable anywhere in the city, whistling and squeaking behind all the tittering and chattering of Erik’s citizens. The sun is warm on Erik’s face, and the gold catches in all the sandstone around him and makes it shimmer.

At the age of twenty-six, the city should already be his, king Jakob abdicating the throne for his only son to take place. He’s of age, and adequately educated in all fields of politics, commerce, history, and science. Adored by peasants and courtiers and everyone inbetween, it’s not as if Erik lacks popularity or position to rule. The only thing he doesn’t have is--

“Erik!” The shop door beside him is thrown open in Charles’ enthusiasm, the little bell tinkling violently above them, and Erik stills its frantic chiming with a curl of his fingers. “Erik, look!” Charles cries, pointing a finger down at his legs, spread apart and decorated with long, brown boots. Erik wants to sigh. He wants to look at Charles with a heavy brow and something unimpressed in his eyes; but all he can do is conjure a small smile.

“How do you like them?” Erik asks, voice a low rumble, and he shuts the door behind Charles where the mermaid has forgotten it. Charles is staring down at his legs, grin splitting his face, a little flushed from the sun, and taps his toes against the cobblestone.

“They’re…” he begins, rocking back on his heels, then tentatively stepping a few paces forwards and backwards. Erik almost has to grab him from the path on an oncoming carriage, but the machine zips out of his way. “Very good,” Charles says, concentrating, pressing bright sparks into Erik’s mind to accompany his words. Marvelous, fantastic, Erik substitutes.

“I’m pleased you like them. Have you kept your socks on?” When Charles looks up at him with a slight frown, Erik presses the image to him, and Charles’ face instantly morphs into understanding. “They’re protective. You’ll get blisters if you haven’t.”

“Blisters,” Charles repeats slowly, and Erik can see him putting the word away in his mind. “They are… not very good?”

“They hurt.” He pinches the bottom of Charles’ ear for emphasis, and Charles huffs, looking up at him from under his brow.

“I know what hurt is.” The part of the beach obscured by cliffs, shadowed by that stormy night and encased by rock pools; thick ribbons of blood spurting out into the water, coiling and curling through the shallows, turning the white froth a sick salmon-pink where it flirts with the shore; clumps of sand sticking to Charles’ thick tail and burning it, filling the wide gashes and lashes fringed by rotted scales. It all comes back to Erik in a push and a flood. Charles looks at him pointedly, then blinks, and it’s all gone and replaced with a smile. “I have protection.”

“Then, let’s keep on.” He turns before he can see Charles’ expression change to something else. 

Books, Erik had decided at breakfast, would also not go unwelcome to Charles’ small collection of belongings, belongings that Erik has given him. Something light to start with, to help him with his words. He throws a glance over his shoulder to where Charles is staring at the ground, watching each booted foot sliding in front of the other, and sighs. If only there was a book on learning to walk. 

“Come here,” Erik says gently, holding out his arm, and Charles watches him for a moment before latching on, holding his bicep. Erik feels Charles’ fingers flex around his muscle and pointedly ignores it, disregards the tingling he always feels under his skin whenever Charles touches him. It must be a mermaid thing, felt psychosomatically as a side effect of Charles’ powers. Erik wouldn’t know what it’d be otherwise.

The quaint bookstore Erik seeks is halfway across the city, opposite the fashion district, and while Erik could easily hail a carriage or slip onto the tram, the walk is peaceful and gives him time to clear his mind, and time for Charles to gaze at this new world he’s assimilating to.

And he does gaze in wonder, with beautiful blue eyes wide and fingers pointing at wood-carved children’s toys in shopfronts, glistening red apples all stacked in neat pyramids at the stalls they pass by, the heavy, layered skirts of dresses with intricate bodices shown off on marble mannequins. The city is full of greens and purples and golds, and every colour does well at catching Charles’ eye. Erik has to coax him from staring too long at the humans around them, men and women and children all running their own errands, tipping their heads in bows to the prince and his eccentric - but not strange - friend, lest he incite some kind of conflict. “This way,” Erik murmurs, edging around a corner into a narrow alley, and Charles follows freely, leaning into Erik, his heels clipping against the stone.

A week ago, Erik had been pressing the flats of his palms to Charles’ naked chest, pushing in rhythmic pulses against his sternum, pinching his cheeks, shaking his shoulders, holding his nose and pressing his mouth to Charles’ own dry, flaking lips, doing _anything_ to get Charles’ eyes to focus and air to fill his lungs. His skin was sticky with sweat and blood, sickly pale even though he’d been scorching hot to touch. A week ago, Charles had been dying, his wounds turned septic, his tail no longer shimmering through light blues and greens, but stilled to something faded and greying.

Now, Erik has never seen him more alive, pressing in close out of the way of a woman and her swift bicycle and smiling up at him in breathless glee. Something hard thumps in Erik’s chest, something opening up in his heart that Erik digs his claws into the fringes of to keep from falling in.

Charles’ hand slips down Erik’s forearm, inching and slow, and he slides their fingers together with a happy sigh. The electricity zips between their palms, and Erik lets Charles hold his hand for a moment, for another, until the tingling almost _hurts-_

He pulls away when they exit the alley, out into one of the wider main streets, flexing his fingers and feeling the last of the sparks fizzle out, and refuses to look at Charles next to him.

Charles is a mermaid, hunted by humans, by _Erik’s_ kind. Erik is the crown prince. Princes are meant to love pretty women in pretty dresses.

And Charles is neither human nor female.

They make it to the bookstore with time to dally, but Erik’s already started biting his lip because the sun has started flirting with the horizon. Raven is no doubt already worrying, and will punch him when he gets back to the palace. Oh well; the way Charles is staring at the rows and rows of shelves full of books makes the inevitable beat down worth it. 

“Prince Erik,” the shopkeeper greets, bowing deeply. 

“Good evening, Mister McCoy,” Erik replies, shutting the heavy wooden door inlaid with stained glasses behind them. The light catches the red, and turns Charles’ cheeks a soft pink when he turns back to look at Erik. Erik nods at Charles, and he looks to the young man with the thin-framed spectacles and untameable tufts of bright blue fur. 

“Good evening, Mister McCoy,” Charles repeats, voice low and serious, and despite everything Erik can’t help but smile at him.

Hank is one part of the few people who know who and what Charles is. He’d never tell, out of loyalty to Erik and his knight rather than of fear of the repercussions. Erik knows that he’d always help Charles if something were to happen to him. “Is there anything I can help you with?” Hank asks slowly, double-edged, and Erik shakes his head, stepping up behind Charles. 

“Just shopping today.”

“I see you have new clothes, Charles,” Hank starts. “You look very smart.”

Charles chirps brightly, and Erik snaps his eye to the woman reading in a kerosene-lit corner, but she doesn’t raise her gaze. _Thank you,_ he pushes at Charles, and the mermaid seems to jump in realisation.

He clears his throat and corrects himself. “Thank you very much, Mister McCoy.” The pink dusting the tops of his cheeks seems to darken, and Erik feels something twist in his chest. He takes Charles’ arm in his hand, and tries a steady breath through his nose, ignoring the tingling birthing at the center of his palm.

 _This way._ He leads them over across the room, under a lacquered wooden archway engraved with small scenes. Charles tilts his head up to study them, craning his neck to look even as Erik hurries him through. “These books are fictional,” Erik tells him, trying not to get stuck on Charles’ lips or cheeks or pretty blue eyes. It’s easy to let go of his arm when he reminds himself that Charles is innocent; that he’s taking advantage of him. “They are tales of romance, drama, mystery, and adventure. You can choose any story you like.” He nods at the shelves, a rainbow of tomes, their spines all varying shades of purple and red and brown.

Charles turns to him fully, and Erik doesn’t think he realises that he’s touching Erik’s waist. “But I do not read.” 

“It won’t be hard to teach you. You’re very clever.”

The shop smells like vanilla, and Erik deduces that Hank’s been burning the sticks of incense Raven favours. The scent settles heavily on his tongue and his lungs, and Charles’ eyes are wide as he breathes slowly. He can feel Charles’ fingers flexing over his muscle, and suddenly Erik’s caught. His lips are that vibrant coral pink, bitten to blush. Even with the heels on Charles’ boots, the mermaid still stands a head and some more shorter than Erik, so dissimilar from the long lines of his true form. The rows of shelves come to Erik’s shoulder, he scans over them; there’s only one woman in the corner, captured in her novel. Hank would never tell-- 

Erik steps back, and Charles tucks his hand to his side. He can feel the gentle warmth of Charles in his mind, and tames his thoughts down into something unreadable, something foreign that Charles wouldn’t understand.

Charles understands so little of this world. He doesn’t understand why it’s wrong for Erik to want to hold him. Thinking nothing of it, Charles would let Erik do it, trusting Erik so completely and so wholly that he’d let him do that to him and- and more.

“This area is for children,” Erik begins, after clearing his throat. “But that only means the words are easy to learn, and there are illustrations.” Charles’ brow knits in concentration, so Erik corrects himself. “Pictures. See?” He pulls something from a shelf, flicking the first few pages before coming to a pretty watercolour image of a man embracing a woman.

Charles ghosts his fingers over the picture, tracing each line with eyes, stroking where the paints bleed into each other and create soft medleys of colour. Erik can practically see him locking the painting into his memory, and lets him take the book to flick through the pages more. “I will be over across the room, if you need me.” He’s surprised his voice sounds so steady; Charles chitters quietly in response, and Erik can feel something inside him melt.

Charles is swamped in the stacks, but Erik flexes his fingers and latches his grip onto every button and clasp on his suit and boots, following him with his powers as he steps around and looks at the books. It’s quick work to make it to where Hank's burly form monsters a shelf near the front door, stacking the new books. He startles when Erik places his hand on his shoulder.

“Erik--” 

“Sorry,” Erik murmurs, peering up over the mess of Hank’s blue fur and placing each person it the room. There’s someone sat in a grand red armchair, tome spread across their lap, the lady in the corner, and an elderly man nearby. Erik presumes his hearing is as faded as his hair. “You haven’t heard anything?”

Hank too glances around, before sighing and looking up at Erik from behind his thick lenses. The glass makes his golden eyes seem bigger and buggier than they really are. “Nothing you hadn’t already prepared yourself for. Gossip travels faster than wind; people are wondering if he’s a prince from the mainland. It’s obvious he’s not from around here.” Charles’ opalescent, marble skin, his watery blue eyes; Erik knew it wouldn’t take long for people to notice, especially in such a small kingdom.

Hank continues, “Munoz and Summers walk the coastline each evening. They’ve not reported seeing anything yet.”

“They’ll be looking for him. It won’t take long for them to come.”

“He was left for dead, Erik,” Hank says softly, frowning a little. “They _tried_ to murder him.”

“The merfolk have their ways. When they realise he’s neither beached nor fish-food, they’ll know that Charles is alive.” Erik fingers the spine of an atlas, eyes averted. “Do you honestly think his kind won’t come for him?”

Hank shifts, clearly unsettled by the idea. “They’d know where to start looking. You have a mark on your head.” Erik hears what Hank doesn’t say. _You’re the reason Charles was exiled in the first place._ Erik hums in response, pulling the book out and weighing it in his hand. He can feel his muscles smart in his arm, taps his fingers against the hard cover.

“Has the-” Hank starts, clearing his throat. “Has the admiral… noticed? He has eyes all over the kingdom.”

“I hope for all our sakes, no.” Even mentioning him makes Erik’s gut feel suddenly empty. If Shaw found out… Erik shakes his head. “Do you have the book I wanted?” 

Hank is used to Erik’s quick switches in conversation, and nods, finally on something he can be certain of. “I wasn’t sure I could get the one you asked for specifically past the censors, but I hope what I scrounged for will do. I had to go to Hempe.”

“I’ll apologise to Raven personally,” Erik offers, and he thinks Hank might flush under his fur, hurrying behind the counter and clambering up the wall-mounted ladder. “I’ll take this, too,” Erik says, laying the atlas on the counter, and turns to find Charles amongst the stacks.

He spies a familiar nest of chestnut hair bobbing up and down, flicks and curls turning gold when the lamplights hit it. Erik forces himself to breathe steadily before he even starts walking over. He finds him with book-laden arms, stooped a little from the weight, and when a chuckle sneaks from his chest Charles glares up at him and clicks his tongue. “Here,” Erik proposes, heaping the books into his own arms. “I take it you found stories you liked.”

Charles has got his eyes on Erik’s biceps and forearms, staring at him almost _angrily-_ “I like the pictures,” he reasons, following Erik to the counter. Hank has his own book and the atlas on the counter, wrapped in brown paper and squared off with fraying twine. Hank gives him a pointed look, but Erik ignores him.

“You take these,” Erik says to Charles, pushing the lighter of Charles’ small library into his arms.

The mermaid huffs. “I _am_ strong like you.”

Erik grins. “Oh, I don’t doubt it for a moment.”

They leave McCoy with less gold in Erik’s coin purse but with arms full of bundled brown packages and smiles splitting their mouths, and Erik thinks that it’s been a good day. The walk back to the palace is much too long for this late in the evening, and now that the sun has started sinking beneath the ocean line Erik’s sure Raven will have a fit, so he hails the tram and they squeeze in. The few citizens seated around the velvet-covered interior stand quickly and bow, and Erik ducks his head in response. They look to Charles, and something protective swells in Erik’s chest so he quickly leads the mermaid down the carriage to an empty seat lining the side.

They’re quiet for now, sitting in comfortable silence with only the rattling and creaking and hissing of the tram between them, but it’s nice. Erik can feel Charles in his mind again, however he knows that Charles is simply… there, sharing his space; not intruding, not prodding or searching. Charles couldn’t do something as malicious as that. He’s too honest. Erik knows he doesn’t think ill of anyone.

So that just makes this harder. It makes Erik even guiltier for feeling this way about him.

Their thighs are pressed together despite all the space along the seat, but when he leans back against the headrest and shuts his eyes Erik’s not sure he can bring himself to mind too much. The disgust with himself is still there, under everything, it never goes away; but for a moment, Erik can focus on the little sparks travelling up under his skin from where they touch and not have to feel bad about it. He can feel Charles twisting from the way the buttons on his coat turn, and Erik’s sure he’s just gazing from the window out at the city as they meander through it, up the hill towards the palace. Erik can imagine what he’s seeing, the way the white stone all turns to gold with the sinking sun, setting the city alight, burning it through copper and orange to carmine and to pink. It’s breathtakingly beautiful. When Erik opens his eyes, he finds Charles gazing slack-jawed and in unabated awe, the city’s colours playing on his face and shimmering in his eyes.

Erik doesn’t look anywhere else.

The tram doesn’t stop at the palace, but it does stop a short walk from it, and it’s good enough. Erik makes sure they’ve gathered all their spoils before ushering Charles off, and nodding to the automatonic conductor. Like Erik knew she would be, Raven is waiting at the gate, frown pulling her brow down over her eyes, her lips acquainted with a dangerous amount of gravity. He sighs, and before Charles can even begin to form the question in his mind, Raven is yelling.

“I know,” Erik mutters on a sigh, monstered by Raven’s steadily loudening voice.

“I am your _bodyguard,_ ” she starts, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. “You _tell me_ where you are so I can _guard you._ ”

“We weren’t gone long, Raven,” Erik tries, but knows it’s futile once she’s started up and gotten into one of her moods.

“Long enough for someone to _assassinate you._ You’d think you wanted to get killed.” Erik levels a _look_ at her. There hasn’t been a murder in the kingdom in over twenty years, and they both know it.

They also both know, however, that they’re housing a fugitive. Erik supposes that _that_ might have something to do with her hysteria.

Like she knows, and Raven probably does because she and Erik are so similarly wired, she turns to Charles, sighs wearily, and smiles softly to placate him. Her tone implies that she and Charles are in on some great joke on the subject of Erik’s intellectual levels. “Good evening, Charles. How are you?” 

Charles almost squeaks - actually, Erik thinks he might have. “Good evening, Miss Raven. I am sorry I took Erik away.” 

“No need to apologise,” she says, pinching his cheek lightly. “You were protecting him from getting into trouble, right?”

“Of course.” Erik doesn’t know why, but at the sound of Charles’ adamance something turns tightly in his chest at that.

“We’re here now,” Erik says in an attempt to get Raven to stop _smirking_ at him. Charles won’t stop looking at him.

Servants relieve them of Charles’ books - Erik slipping his own secret tome off - the moment they step inside the shimmering marble foyer of the palace. He’s lived here for a week, but with each day spent curled in the cot Erik placed in the unused bathroom, the grandeur of the castle still catches Charles off-guard. Erik watches him gaze around the space, tracing up each pillar and its gold inlay with his eyes, craning his neck to look at the painted ceiling, finally coming to settle on Erik. When he smiles it makes Erik breathless.  
  
“Dinner, first,” Erik tells him quietly after a still moment. He can feel Charles at the base of his skull, where he usually settles. “Then I’ll run you a bath. Unless you’d rather…”

Charles pushes _hunger_ at him, reverting back to his natural form of communication, his words exhausted for the day. He takes Erik’s hand, and leads him down a hall. Erik can’t help himself from rubbing his thumb over Charles’ small knuckles.

The King and Queen know what Charles is - they know _who_ Charles is - and still they trust their son to know what he’s doing, letting the mermaid sit at their table, live in their home. They laugh gently with him, smiling as they watch Charles struggle with cutlery, learning the difference between all the little spoons and forks that a time ago Erik knows Charles would have foraged for in wrecked ships and stowed away in his grotto. Edie asks him of his recovery, his day in the city, how he’s liking everything, and Jakob nods quietly. “Having him might be our first step to reconciliation with the merfolk,” Erik had argued, pleaded, _begged,_ less than a week ago with Charles' blood coating his hands and caking in his hair, and Jakob’s eyes had hardened in thought. “If he survives the night,” the king had rebutted.

Charles sits now, chirping and clicking his tongue happily. He’s still not got the hang of the mechanics of the fork and knife, and so from next to him Erik waves his fingers lightly and cuts Charles’ food into neat little bites.

“If Shaw can ever be convinced for peace,” Erik’s father had continued with a sigh. Charles’ head lolled in Erik’s lap, eyes glassy and skin so translucent the thin blue veins spidering over his body were sickly stark.

 _Shall I run your bath?_ Erik asks him once he’s sure Charles has finished eating - he became so thin in those initial, uncertain days. Charles doesn’t push words at him; something blooms in Erik’s mind, soft and tinted with gold, like he knew the answer all along.

The bathroom is exactly that - a high-ceilinged room, seldom used, with a large, chest-deep pool set in the floor. The tiles are composed of blue mosaics that tint the water, the dome ceiling painted and styled to that of the palatial bathhouses of some faraway, foreign kingdoms of the mainland. Long, stained-glass windows open the far wall of the room, and turns the silver moon purple and red. The air is chilled, and once Erik has the door’s lock melted securely behind them, he sets about flicking the small kerosene lamps on, turning the dozen faucets set in the middle of the pool whilst giving the boiler a little kickstart, and fixing the windows shut, all with his powers.

Charles’ blood-stained cot has been moved from the room. It makes sense; he’s to be across from Erik now. 

Steam is already starting to coil from the water, making the air thicker and harder to breathe. He refrains from tipping in salts or oils or scents; Erik’s not sure how Charles’ wounds would react. He turns, and finds the mermaid standing staring at him, a little hopelessly. In the low light shadows play on his face, and he seems so young even though Erik knows that the mermaid is older than him by leagues. He is not young, Erik corrects; he’s innocent. And Erik looks at him and wants to ruin him.

“What’s wrong?” Erik doesn’t know how he manages to keep his voice so steady.

Charles shakes his arms, the coat sleeves falling over his fingers, and looks down at the buckles and clasps of his boots. He chitters lowly. The air thickens, and it’s hard to swallow against the sudden lump in Erik’s throat.

“Would you like help?” The only sounds Erik can hear are the gushing water and his own shallow breathing, loud to his own ears. Charles holds his arms out, like a child wanting to be held, and Erik finds that taking the three steps over to him is one of the easiest things he’s ever done in his life.  
  
“We’ll teach you how to dress yourself properly,” Erik begins to say, rambling to keep his mouth busy and his mind off what his hands are doing. The two gold buttons on the front of Charles’ coat slip through their slots without Erik even touching the material. Slowly, with his eyes locked on Charles’, looking for any apprehension, any sign of disgust; but all he finds in Charles’ eyes is some strange kind of eagerness.

It’s almost impossible for Erik to keep his thoughts tame. His tongue is heavy in his mouth, lips hot, and his fingers almost tremble as he moves to push the coat from Charles’ slight shoulders. The cuffs catch around Charles’ wrists, but with eyes still on Erik, Charles tugs himself free. Throwing the coat over his shoulder, Erik starts on the waistcoat, and then the orange necktie. “You can do the blouse,” Erik tells him, tapping the buttons of the white, ruffled shirt, and Charles nods.

 

Falling to one knee in front of Charles doesn’t feel like it should. Erik’s fingers slip over the buckles on Charles’ boots once, and then twice, and he hisses before clenching a fist and letting his powers to work. Charles braces a hand over his shoulder when he lifts his leg for Erik to pull the loosened boot off, after he taps his ankle in prompt. Erik looks up at him, and he can _see_ Charles shiver.

Modesty is not a virtue common amongst merfolk, and so Charles shucks his shirt and rolls the breeches down once he’s free of the boots, careless to Erik right there in front of him. The thick gashes across the tops of his thighs have already healed thanks to the balm Raven procured and no doubt Charles' own immunity, the scars raised and jagged, cutting across Charles’ skin like white lightning. Erik doesn’t look long. He fingers the clasps of his socks, and they pop open with a soft click. The hand Charles has braced against his shoulder slides across, up his neck, fingers brushing Erik’s jaw, before settling in his combed hair.

He could lean forward, and he could take Charles in his mouth, and tell him _this is simply what humans do_ and he’d never know; for Erik is _all_ he knows, and it’d be _so easy_ to exploit that.

He never would. Erik knows he could never live with himself. This is just the sick part of his brain leaking its black sticky thoughts all through him.

“Are you alright now?” Erik asks, standing up abruptly. Charles’ hand tugs his hair a little before it falls limply to his side, and the mermaid sighs so quietly the only reason Erik knows he has is that he feels his breath ghosting his lips.

Charles steps past him, shimmying his underwear over his hips, and Erik promptly turns red and glares at the tiled floor. He can’t help glancing up from the corner of his eye, however, as Charles slowly steps down into the water, one steady, bare foot in front of the other, and Erik watches as inch by inch more of Charles’ skin disappears into the frothy, steaming water. Slowly he clenches his fists, and the taps shut, the dregs of hot water emptying from the pipes and dribbling into the pool.

Erik can’t keep his eyes off Charles when he’s like this, no matter how loudly his heart thumps, no matter how much his mind screams at him to _have some respect,_ that he’s _wrong_ and _sick;_ watching Charles change is always mesmerising, and it always renders him breathless.

“I’ll wait for you out the front,” Erik almost gasps, and he glares at the door before he does something stupid. “Take your time.”

If all the guards in the palace were to stand by as Charles bathed, Erik would still not feel it safe enough if he weren’t there, too. So he sits, like had every other night when Charles had been healing and Erik couldn’t bring himself to stray far, out the front of the bathroom. It’s on one of the lower levels, the corridor it stems from hardly ever building any traffic, and so Erik lets himself sag in the chair by the door, rubbing his face and sighing into his palms. The air out here is cool and clear, and he gulps it down hoping it douses the fever coursing through his veins.

Charles takes an hour, or maybe two. Erik loses his track of time caught between thinking about _just what he’s doing_ harbouring a mermaid in the kingdom and _just what he’s going to do when Charles finds out,_ because one day he’ll sink too deep into Erik’s mind and nothing will be the same.  
  
He can hear Charles chirp on the other side of the door when he’s ready, and he can feel him bright in his mind, waking him up from his idle. Charles is naked, in his human form, and Erik promptly huffs and throws Charles’ discarded coat around his shoulders. “Hurry up, then,” he grouses, voice coarse. He thinks he spies Charles grinning up at him.

If he could, Erik would have Charles in his chambers, and he’d take a cot in the corner offering his bed to Charles. His mother hadn’t allowed it. “You’re getting too attached,” she said softly, and Erik froze. “He can’t stay here forever.”

He remembers the girl from Tauw, and clenches his jaw.

They take the elevator, a strange contraption that Erik knows Charles is fearful of but in his current state it’s the quickest option to getting Charles to his room and _into_ his clothes. Charles steps close to Erik as they ascend, and Erik bites the inside of his cheek.

Charles’ chambers are rather similar to Erik’s own in most respects. The bed is smaller, the bookcases aren’t as personalised, and the room lacks all the little things it acquires when a person lives in it for years - knick-knacks and stylised furniture, ambience and scent - but it’s cosy enough, and Charles is captured by it. “Dress yourself in this for now,” Erik tells him, procuring an old nightdress of Raven’s stowed away in the chest of drawers. It’s loose on Charles, lax in all the places it should hug his form, stretching over his thick muscles, and when Erik glances at him he finds it hard to look away. Its sleeves are long, revealing the tops of his broad shoulders and his collar bone, and its lacy trim ends just above his knees.

“Erik?” Charles calls softly after a few silent moments pass. _Stop it,_ Erik hisses at himself, and shakes himself from his daze.

“My apologies. It suits you.”

It goes quiet again, and Charles shifts from foot to bared foot, looking at Erik from under his lashes. It’s almost like he’s waiting.

To distract himself Erik sets about starting up the lamp on the bedside table. It’s some kind of solar-powered electric contraption, but he’s not sure if he’s ready to introduce Charles to the concept of electricity. He pulls the covers back on the bed. He tries not to think about what it would be like to be in bed with Charles. It’s a quick walk to the door after that.

“Do you think you’ll be okay for tonight?” he asks, and Charles still looks at him like he’s _expecting something_ so Erik busies himself unlatching the door and stepping into the corridor. 

 _Yes, thank you,_ Charles projects, but he still looks uncertain.  
  
“I’ll read to you tomorrow, after breakfast,” Erik tells him. Charles fidgets where he stands, twisting his hands together. “I’ll bring some of my favourite books, too.” 

 _Thank you, Erik,_ Charles pushes in reply, glancing down the long corridor and back up at Erik. He bites his bottom lip. Erik steadies himself.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning, okay? First thing.”

“First thing,” Charles repeats quietly, but he’s still wringing his hands and looking up at Erik.

 _You could kiss him,_ some part of Erik’s mind says, and another wonders if Charles can hear it. _He wouldn’t know. You could take him back to your room-_ “My room is just down there, remember?” Erik reminds him, his mouth suddenly dry, and he hopes Charles doesn’t notice the way he rubs his palms against his thighs. “If you need anything, you call to me.” He taps his temple.

“I’ll come for you, Erik.” 

His lips are so red. Something black and cold slithers around in Erik’s belly.

“Then, good night, Charles.”

He waits until Charles is in his room with the door locked - Erik turning the switch on the inside - before turning into his own chambers. He waves the servant away with a sigh and an urgent hand, and stares at his wide, cold bed for a handful of minutes.

He’s never known a lover’s touch, and Erik resigns himself to the fact that he never will; he won’t ever be able to love a woman, not in that way. And he can never have Charles. 

The sheets are chilled, the space next to Erik too wide and too empty. The pillow there beside him is unruffled, never slept on, and looking at it makes Erik feel sick and his eyes sore.

When Erik sleeps, on his back with empty arms, a weight is lying atop him on golden sand with fingers in his hair, a shimmering tail curled between his legs, the necklaces hanging from his collar calling to him, and his eyes as blue as the water beyond them. 

* * *

 


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to everyone for reading, and to Thacmis for her beautiful art and for prodding this story along <3333

If there’s one thing Charles misses, it’s the water; the way it carded through his hair like a mate’s fingers as he swam against currents, as fast as his tail could push; the weightlessness of being encased in the never ending blue; the way it stung his eyes for just second after he’d duck back down from the surface, an alien sensation that made him giddy, a reminder that he’d done something no mermaid should.  
  
He doesn’t miss his family.

When he sits for dinner with King Lehnsherr and the Queen, and Erik, who all look at each other like they’ve got the moon in their eyes and the sun in their hearts, he grieves for himself when he realises that he never even had one.  
  
But now… now he has something. Now, he has Erik.

“ _The courtesan’s visage bore complete resemblance to a doll; her skin porcelain white, her lashes long and dark, as black as night. With sapphires for eyes, and lips of the richest rubies, the maharaja was introduced to a new kind of warfare, one he had not been tutored in before. There were no scripts and no texts for which the maharaja to study on emerging victorious, no strategist clever enough to best it with maneuvers and tactics to seek for advice, for this war was to be a futile, fruitless battle with the prince’s own heart.”_

But Erik won’t have him, and Charles doesn’t understand.

“I do not like it,” Charles remarks, slouching against the wooden seat. He fingers the gold tassel on the corner of the cushion behind his back, and sticks his lip out in a pout.

Erik closes the book with a sigh that, while quiet, still doesn’t slip by Charles’ keen hearing. “And why not?” He doesn’t sound impatient, or even exasperated. In fact, it’s like he’s trying to keep the humour from his tone, like he thinks this is _funny._ Charles’ bottom lip sticks out even further.

“It will end sad,” he states. When he looks up at Erik, the prince _is_ smiling at him, and for all Charles wishes he could be petulant and grumpy, seeing Erik smile like that makes him feel anything but. “The… the…” 

“Maharaja,” Erik offers softly.

“Yes, he cannot be with the…”

“Courtesan.” His smile widens. Charles thinks of the animals he lived with before, the ones humans call _sharks._

“It will be sad. They love each other. But your silly human rules will not let them be together.”

Erik nods. “I suppose that is sad. But I haven’t read to you the rest of the story. It may turn out good.”

“But it might not.”

Erik shrugs. “Sometimes, you have to take that chance with things.”

Charles bites his lip, and shuffles up, pinching at his cream-coloured breeches and pulling at them where they stick to the skin of his legs. _His legs…_ “But you won’t take that chance.”

The smile drops from Erik’s mouth, and Charles feels something cold spike in his chest. He said the wrong thing. He made Erik mad. “Do you want me to continue?” is all Erik asks, nodding down at the worn novel in his hands. Charles looks at the book and feels a flash of memory, not his own. Of course it’s not. It’s Erik, as a young boy, reading the story to himself.

“Yes,” Charles breathes, looking up out across the palace gardens. They’re hidden away under the shadow of thick-trunked trees with heavy branches, offering a canopy of lime green and khaki for the pair to sit beneath. The low-backed bench is wide enough for amicable space between them. Charles is itching to be rid of it. “But first… what is a courtesan?”

When Erik goes still and quiet, Charles peers up at him from the corner of his eye. He’s… red. Blushing; that’s the word. Erik is blushing. Charles looks away, feeling something strange in his chest. He can hear Erik assembling his thoughts, and Charles wonders just _what_ is making Erik so flustered. Humans can be so _peculiar._

“A courtesan is a type of woman. Rich men, powerful men give her gifts and money, and in return, she becomes their lover.” That’s all? Charles doesn’t understand why Erik struggled so much; but then, he doesn’t understand a lot of human customs, he supposes. 

“Their lover,” Charles repeats, letting the words roll off his tongue. “Lover. That sounds like a nice word.”

Erik gives some kind of nonchalant half-shrug, opening the book once more and thumbing through the pages. Charles can tell Erik is withholding something, and gives him a sly little glance that goes unnoticed. “But to be paid to love someone - that is not love at all.”

Erik makes a noise that’s halfway between a hum and a whine, high pitched and rather desperate-sounding. “I’m not sure you’d understand the context of this kind of love, Charles.”

“Then, explain it to me.” _I want to learn,_ he pushes. _I want to learn about humans._

Erik sighs, and Charles thinks that for a moment he might have won, and Erik will tell him this secret that makes him red in the face and his hands twitchy - but then Erik finds his page, clears his throat, and simply says, “One day,” before he begins reading once more.

 

Charles settles back against the cushion as Erik picks up the story, swinging his gaze from Erik’s face - stony in concentration but not cold - to the vast expanse of green grass in front of them, tracing each white-stoned path edging the gardens with his eyes. Human gardens are little different to the gardens of Charles’ home, but the swaying and pulsing corals are instead blooming flowers, and the small shimmering gups are delicate, paperthin-winged butterflies, and there are coarse bushes in lieu of the soft, stringy seaweed beds that Charles used to curl into during the long days spent hiding in his grotto.

Humans _themselves…_ are very different to mermaids, he’s learning. He’s always been intrigued by them, their many cultures and traditions, simply the way they _live,_ above the water, out in the sun, filling their lungs with the sea-scented air. He’s always had an interest.

It’s his interest that almost got him killed--

But then Erik came. Erik saved him. And now Erik’s sworn to protect him.

Charles looks down at the space between the outsides of their thighs. It’s maybe the width of his fist. Something under Charles’ skin is _itching, tingling, calling_ to him to just edge closer and press his leg against Erik’s, feel his hard muscles and the warmth they radiate. His lips burn hot with the _want,_ the _need_ to lean over and silence Erik’s voice with his tongue.

Erik makes him feel like this, and Charles knows why, had been told by the elderly mermaids of the seagardens - their hair silver as the moon, their faces bedecked by time - what it meant to have this _need_ to _touch_ another being.

Charles always thought it silly and fictitious, something confined to old merfolk tales. If Charles’ own kin could not love him, why should he believe in anything as transparent as _true love._ How could he believe there was a person out there, somewhere out there, made just for him, created solely for the purpose of loving Charles and accepting Charles’ own love in return.

“ _And so the courtesan discarded her jewels and her gems, concealed her bosom with tightly wrapped cloth and laced trousers around her waist in lieu of the billowy skirts that would always catch in the breeze. She would change for the maharaja, to save his reputation, to be someone he could see in the daylight.”_

The tingling at the tips of Charles’ fingers almost starts to hurt. Just a flex, a brush, a _taste,_ and Charles can stick his hands under his thighs and sit still. He just needs to feel Erik, just once, for the moment. 

He does it in the simple press of the flat of his palm against Erik’s leg, just above his knee, and he disguises it as simply supporting himself as he shifts. Erik breaks off, words replaced by a small breathy gasp, and he stares at Charles with wide, worried eyes. But the tingling doesn’t stop for Charles, his need isn’t sated; instead it catches and flares and burns through his veins, and once his hand is on Erik he can hardly find it in his soul to pull away.

But Charles needn’t. Erik moves his thigh away, quickly, clears his throat and continues reading, eyes averted, downcast, and Charles almost feels ill. He lets his hand still over the space Erik’s thigh was, before tucking it back to his lap, heat burning away high up on his cheeks. He quiets after that, and lets Erik read on.

How can Erik be his soulmate if he can’t even stand Charles touching him. He doesn’t feel the sparks.

He doesn’t feel anything for Charles.  

As he cradled Charles to his chest that week ago, Erik promised he’d protect him, always and forever, until his last breath. Charles doesn’t remember a lot after having laid washed up on the shore for days, sunburnt and weak, but he remembers the conviction with which Erik had spoken, remembers the way his strong, secure arms had trembled around his thin frame. 

Charles sighs, and when he glances up at Erik now, the prince won’t look at him.

He was dying. Even with his mind coiling through Erik’s, seeking out the brightest points and niches, flowing into his conscious and feeling it melting into his own, he must have heard wrong.

“There you are,” says a voice nearby, and Charles and Erik both startle. The story dies on Erik’s tongue. “I’ve walked the palace _twice_ trying to find you!”

Raven punches Erik’s shoulder before her gloved fists find themselves on her hips, her weight on one leg, and with her face shadowed she cuts a fearsome line in the sunlight. She’s in her knight’s garb, sans the rose-gold armour, but even with her body only swathed in draping cream-coloured wraps, a green sash across her chest speaking of her status, Charles still gets nervous of her. Now though, he feels something else; it twists tighter when he looks at Erik and finds him rubbing at his sore arm.

“You found me,” Erik grouses. His mind feels prickly, irritated. “What is it?”

The knight huffs. Even though she’s in service to Erik, she obviously isn’t phased by him. _They must be close,_ part of Charles whispers. His fingers twitch against his thigh.

“So testy,” she drawls, and Charles notices her looking at Erik’s book. He can’t yet read human text, but he’s sure Raven can. “The admiral wants to see you.”

Everything about Erik changes and shifts - his mind and his posture, even his gentle breaths turn shallow and thin. “What does he want.” His voice is reedy. Charles doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t miss the way Erik and Raven both glance at him.

Raven changes, too, from watching Erik. She bites her lip, and her hands slide down to her thighs, and she sighs. “He didn’t say. He just wanted you to meet him.”

Curiosity gets the better of Charles, and he brushes his powers across Erik’s mind, careful not to stir his thoughts and make himself known. There’s a man in Erik’s memories, with sharp features and a smile that doesn’t warm his eyes. His image makes Charles shiver. 

Erik turns on him then, and even though Charles has learnt that Erik rarely smiles there’s a soft tug to his lips now, placating, and he leans in close. “I’m sorry, Charles. We’ll finish the book later?” 

“Of course.” A sudden ache blossoms in Charles’ chest; his hands feel heavy, and he flexes his fingers. He realises, with a strange clarity, that he doesn’t want Erik to go at all.

“Raven will stay with you,” Erik tells him in that same gentle tone, and Charles can hear Raven making some indignant squawking sound but with Erik so close he pays her no mind.

“I’m not a babysitter!” she says, but Charles doesn’t know what that means so he ignores it.

He brings his hand to the side of Erik’s face and swipes his fingers over his cheekbone - and it feels so _right,_ so perfect. “Come back soon.” Charles thinks those are the right words; but when Erik freezes, he isn’t sure. When Erik pulls away stiffly, he _knows_ they weren’t.

“Come on then,” sighs Raven, reaching for Charles’ hand, and with a slight reluctance he takes her gloved palm. “Reading is boring. I’ll show you where the fun is at.”

He doesn’t really understand, Raven speaks so quickly and, for some reason, she doesn’t like him in her mind. Human communication is so _different._ Charles glances at Erik for reassurance, and the prince gives him a look Charles isn’t sure he’s meant to see.

Erik’s mind is full of worry.

Raven tugs him away, and for a moment he stumbles and he can feel Erik’s mind shooting at him like an arrow, surging and falling in concern and then calm. He doesn’t say anything more. Raven leads him from the gardens and from Erik, following one of the white-pebbled paths that wind around beds and bushes of bright orange flowers, between hankering trees with drooping strings of red leaves, finally past the fountain that Erik had told him to be wary of this morning. “You mustn’t get wet anywhere other than in your bathroom,” Erik had told him, and Charles had nodded his acquiescence; Erik could ask anything of him and he’d do it in a heartbeat.

But Charles knows what he meant with that command.  
  
“Here’s probably my favourite place in the palace,” Raven’s saying, taking him across the grass and deviating from the path back to the castle. The grass sinks beneath his boots, and it reminds him of seaweed. “I like to come here when I need to think. Erik stole it. He comes here to brood when he’s in a funk; leaves his bad energy all over the place.” Charles isn’t exactly sure what any of that means, but he doesn’t think anything about Erik could be bad. 

A tree with the biggest trunk Charles thinks he has ever seen - at least, in his week of living as a human - guards the space Raven leads him to. White flowers hang in strings from the branches, so long and low they almost touch the grass, and they ruffle and sway with the gentle breeze. “This way,” Raven says eagerly, pulling aside the curtain of petals, cocking her head. She’d never take him somewhere dangerous; Erik trusts her, and so Charles can, too.

On the other side of the partition lays a wide, half-moon balcony, sun-faded and patchy white stone with moss creeping in each crack and crevice left by time. The barrier only comes to waist height, but Charles can see the ocean through the gaps of the carvings along it. “Go on,” Raven coaxes quietly, and Charles steps up, looks over; there’s nothing but the ocean, vast and glistening and shimmering with the sun, speared by the brassy lighthouse. Below the balcony lay a small craggle of rock pools that Charles knows well; he blushes, and Raven is smiling but she’s also _frowning_ and Charles doesn’t know what that means.

“Beautiful,” he says, and Raven nods, letting him be. She steps up beside him, leaning against the support.

“It really is. The sea goes on forever. From here you can be the first to see the ships returning.”

“Ships,” Charles repeats, tentatively pushing the image into Raven’s mind. She pulls a face, but quickly smoothes her expression - words like _Erik_   _told you_ and _he doesn’t mean it_ blossoming in her mind, and a memory - then nods.

“Yes. Well done.” 

Charles chirps at the praise, and Raven huffs her laughter. Humans all make different sounds like that, he’s finding, so unlike his own kind and their nearly identical echolocation. “Ships,” he repeats, then, “Erik was on a ships.”

Raven’s laughter stops, and when Charles glances at her shyly her mouth is pursed and her eyes are hard. “Yes, he was,” she finally says. It doesn’t seem like enough. 

“Why?” Charles tries, and now everything about her goes hard. Charles notices no matter how much she tries to hide it.

She’s quiet for a few moments, and Charles looks back out at the water and can hardly believe how different it looks; how bland. He knows what the ripples of the sand look like under the blue; his fingers have carded through the seaweed as he’s swum along. He’s seen the pebbles and the shells and the lost treasures embedded in the floor, he’s settled on his back and stared up at the filmy, fractured sun, daydreaming of a better life for hours on hours. He remembers how lonely he felt. 

“I think you should ask Erik,” Raven finally says, offering him an apologetic smile. It would be so easy to dive into Raven’s mind and find whatever it is that she’s too afraid to voice; but it would be so easy to ruin this strange friendship he’s found. Charles doesn’t know much about humans, but he knows they have strange limits and stranger hearts.

Besides, he already knows; _of course_ he knows. The pack had been sent out that night. He’d hidden in the fringes of their group, and watched the carnage with wide eyes.

He just wants to know what Erik had to do with it all.  

So Charles rocks back on his heels and hums. “You should ask Erik to bring you up here, too,” Raven continues. “It’s beautiful at sunset.”

“Sunset,” Charles repeats, and Raven smiles, gold eyes glinting and crinkled at the corners. “That is… when the sun touches the sea.”

She laughs, tipping her head in acknowledgement. “That’s one way to call it.” She lets Charles gaze down at the waters, the flush-inducing rockpools, at where the fringes of the gardens are visible to Charles’ left from their vantage point before touching his back and nodding at the white flowered-tree. “Come on; I’ll show you all the secret passageways through the castle.”

Charles takes Raven’s hand when she offers it, and she leads him from the secret balcony back out to the fountain. An atrium lies behind rice paper doors, with a small pool set in the floor that Charles steps around cautiously. Raven laughs. Even though the space is open, with windows paneless, the air smells of lavender and vanilla and something earthy, and when Charles looks around beautiful ladies of the court are sitting at small glass tables sipping tea with their automatonic butlers at their sides.

They all gaze at him from over their cups, their shiny red lips quirked and eyes heavy. The sleeves of their dresses stop midarm, combatting the heat, but their silken gloves creep up over their wrists and cover their skin despite it. Their hats are adorned with feathers and flowers, wide-brimmed and molded into a careful, slight warp. “Charles,” Raven says now, jiggling his arm, and heat crawls high up onto his cheeks. “I don’t suppose you have a mermaid girl-friend waiting for you back home?” 

“Girlfriend?” The atrium tapers down into a closed corridor leading back inside the palace. Raven groans. 

“Mermaids still have girlfriends, right? You’re not _that_ different.”

Charles frowns, silent for a moment. He skims her mind gently, quietly, and it clicks. “A mate?” 

Raven nods, laughing a little. “Yeah, a mate, I suppose. Did you have one?”

Mermaids only ever have one mate. Sometimes, they never find them. That had always scared Charles as a child; being alone forever. “No,” he says, and thinks of Erik. Raven makes another one of her strange noises, but a new question blossoms into his mind. “How are human mates?”

“You mean, what are they like? Well… you should ask Erik,” she says through a snicker. Charles doesn’t get the joke. Suddenly, everything feels cold, and he can hear the breath he takes. 

Charles licks his lips. Raven’s leading him up a small flight of stairs. “Is Miss Raven… the mate of Erik?”

Raven stops so abruptly that Charles walks into her back, but any huffs or chitters of complaint are drowned out by her laughter. “Am I Erik’s mate?” she reiterates, leaning against the bannister. “ _Me_?” Charles fidgets in his spot, suddenly feeling hot and itchy. “No way. Don’t worry, that position is definitely available, and won’t be taken anytime soon. The Prince is so temperamental, no right-thinking woman would put up with him.” While Raven finishes her words out loud, Charles hears more in her echoey mind - _no_ _woman, or man._

“I’m simply his knight,” Raven continues, turning back and climbing the stairs. “And we’ve been friends since I can remember.”

Relief - this must be what the lightness in his chest is. Still, curiousity niggles at the back of his mind. “I have never had friends.”

Raven’s hand feels tighter around his own, but Charles isn’t sure why.  
  
They weave through the castle, ascending spiralling stairs hidden behind grand bookcases, down trap doors concealed under rugs. He’s not sure he’ll even remember any of the passageways Raven’s taken him down, but in the moment Charles can’t mind - with the smooth leather of her glove holding onto his thin hand, it’s easy to forget each zig-zagging left and right they take. The muscles that make up the backs of his legs start to smart, the sensation alien and uncomfortable, but still oddly _pleasant._ A reminder, he thinks, that he _has_ legs, that this isn’t a daydream and he’s going to wake lying at the bottom of his grotto; a reminder that he’s _free._  

When his stomach growls, Raven takes them to the kitchens, where she shows him how to sneak around and steal from Marie’s pantry unbeknownst to the cook. Here, Raven _doesn’t_ excel, Charles learns. She’s caught with a handful of small citrus fruits and a gleeful laugh in her throat, and Marie’s voice following them as Raven runs them out the kitchen’s back door to a small courtyard, with another door that leads to a back path down to the quieter part of the beach. “What do mermaids eat, anyway?” Raven wonders around a mouthful of the pink flesh, shucking the light orange skin with deft hands. Charles’ hands slip over the pore-pocked outer, nails dragging and catching the zest.

Raven plucks it from his grip with a snort. “Plants, of course,” Charles tells her, before correcting himself. “Sea plants. Corals. What did you think?”

“Boring,” she drawls, passing him the naked fruit, and when he bites into it juice dribbles down to his chin. “We were always told the merpeople feasted on humans.”

Charles almost chokes. _That is disgusting._ Raven cackles. 

“Come on, Erik should be done now.”

In the kitchen Marie - the kind woman who brought Charles strange broths when Erik rescued him, Charles realises - rouses on them, saying things like _spoiling your appetite_ and _lunch will be ruined,_ things Charles thinks he understands the meaning of. Raven simply waves her hand dismissively, taking Charles’ arm and soldiering on. “Sorry, Marie,” she finally relents, right before she exits, and pats Marie’s covered shoulder in apology.

Charles can hardly gather his bearings at the speed Raven takes them through the castle; down a corridor, along another, up a flight of stairs, crossing a marble foyer with green tapestries falling down the walls. He almost feels dizzy by the time she brings him to a wide walkway, framing a small garden that features a running fountain in the centre, its water cloudy. For all its peaceful tranquility and fresh, bosky scent, Charles can’t ignore the way his stomach suddenly feels tight and his fingers start to jitter against his thighs. Something strangely familiar calls to him, but it’s just out of his reach and made of smoke.

Before he can say a word, a door far along to the left swings open, and Charles’ nerves fizzle away to nothing the instant he sees Erik stalking from the room. He takes a few hurried steps forward, chest light, only to be stopped by Raven’s strong grip around his arm, pulling him back with a jolt so hard Charles fears his arm might pop from its socket. Another man follows Erik, thin and just skimming past Erik’s height, but suddenly he’s out of Charles’ sight - Raven sucks a breath between her teeth, and quickly weaves in front of Charles, hiding him behind her back. Through her eyes he can see Erik notice them, and blanch in turn. Charles doesn’t understand. 

“I do hope you’ll introduce him to me, soon,” Charles can hear an alien voice saying. It’s quickly followed by a bark that he recognises as Erik, final, and full of sour contempt.

“Good day, Shaw.” It echos around the space. When Charles peeks over Raven’s shoulder, the man is staring right at him and grinning sickly.

 _Shaw,_ Charles thinks. His mind is black as ink and sickly sticky, and Charles recoils the moment he touches it.

Erik’s boots clip heavily against the stone floor as he stalks briskly to Raven, and when Charles looks up at him Erik’s glaring hard. “You shouldn’t be here,” he seethes, grabbing her arm and turning her roughly. Charles leans into her side, and glances away back to the fountain when Erik flicks his heated gaze down at him.

“Erik, we-” Raven tries, biting her lip, but Erik only jostles her, pushing her to start walking. Charles feels an arm coil around his waist, and he realises with a strange flutter of his rapid heart that it doesn’t belong to the knight.

Erik pulls him into his side tightly, supporting his weight enough that when Charles stumbles from the pace Erik’s set he doesn’t fall. Before Erik turns him sharply down the adjoining corridor, Charles chances a quick glance over his shoulder. 

Shaw is staring right at him, grin bigger and sicker and splitting his face.

No one speaks, not til they come to the foyer lined with heavy tapestries. Erik turns on Raven first. “What were you thinking,” he spits, hardly a question, and Charles can’t help flinching. Raven stands her ground, cocking her jaw and bringing a fist to her hip.

“We were waiting for you,” she counters, unfazed. Erik stares at her, almost incredulously. His arm is digging into Charles’ ribs painfully tight.

“The severity of the situation seems to have escaped you, Raven,” Erik hisses. “Shaw _cannot_ know of Charles.” 

Raven scoffs. “Isn’t it more suspicious to keep him hidden? Shaw has eyes all over the kingdom. You know this. He’ll find out about Charles soon enough.”

“I’ll take as much time as I can get. I’d prefer it _not_ be prematurely cut short.” From where Charles is against Erik, he can feel each ragged breath he sucks between his teeth, can feel the frantic fluttering of his heart. _Fear,_ is what fills Erik’s mind, not anger. _All is okay,_ Charles tries to push to him, sneaking his hand across to brush his fingers over Erik’s wrist. Erik squeezes him so tight Charles almost can’t breathe. “You’re relieved of your duties for the day,” Erik finally says, after a moment of tense silence has passed. 

 

 

They seem matched in stubbornness, but Raven eventually relents with a sigh, and lets her weight fall to one leg. “I’m sorry, Erik. I’ll check in with you before evening.” 

She seems to take Erik’s anger with her as she leaves, trotting down some stairs that Charles thinks might lead to the west wing of the palace. The moment she’s out of sight, Erik looses a shaky sigh, and the arm around Charles’ chest starts to tremble.  
  
“Promise me you will never go to that part of the castle,” Erik commands, eyes shut, arm still shaking. “Promise me, Charles.”

“Yes, I… I promise. Erik?” Charles manages, turning as best he can and looking up at the prince. His eyes are still shut, his mind a mess of rambled images and colours. Despite everything, Erik’s spilling fear bleeding in with his own confusion, Charles can’t help but feel _safe._ When Erik doesn’t respond he reaches up, but before he can touch Erik’s cheek the prince pulls away, releasing him from his hold, but letting him no farther than a pace from his side.

“Come on.” His voice sounds rough, broken; Charles’ hand falls limply to his side. “Let’s go into the city.” 

Erik says no more, trusting Charles to fall quickly into step beside him. They’re out of the castle in a matter of turns, and Charles pays half a mind not to topple down the stairs that spill from the main entrance of the palace. He’s glad for his appropriated snack now - it seems Erik’s too worked up to even worry about lunch.

The moment Erik steps foot outside the palace gates, he comes back to himself with a quiet breath and some words Charles doesn’t understand. Erik taking his hand feels like touching an urchin - the flare burns up his arm and tingles in his muscles. The closest tram stop is only a short walk, and Erik nods at the automaton stationed at the door. Charles nods in kind, and the automaton’s head snaps with a small hiss in his direction. Charles blanches, and over the whirring of the machine’s gears he can hear Erik huff his laughter.  
  
They take the tram for a long while. Charles sits window-side, gazing out at the city, and with Erik next to him he feels safer than he has in a long time. The kingdom of Genosha has four key areas, Erik had told him; the docks and fisheries, comprised of markets and sailing gear and ships for hire; near to Hank's home and bookstore is the theatre, restaurants, and a handful of dusty book stores and the the residential apartment towers, all slant-shingled with brown tiles; the smithing and electric district, which Erik had informed him smells of oil and coal, and is humid with steam; and the small fashion district where Erik had taken him yesterday. The tram weaves through this one last, crossing a thin rickety bridge and shunting into the wide, cobblestoned main street. Here, Charles thinks, the kingdom is busiest, with hundreds of humans all flitting about, dressed in wonderfully dyed fabrics, hurrying like the rainbow-scaled gups that dart between and around pulsing corals back in the reefs.

There are several stops in the fashion district. The first one offers Charles a moment to watch the humans - men and women alike - pulling every sort of expression between a frown and a grin caught in the ebb and flow of the crowd. Women clutch their children’s hands, holding them close with boxes pinned under their arms, men straining under the weight of their lovers’ bags… Lover. Two humans embrace tightly, before the man steps onto the tram and settles by a window, gazing from it longingly. Charles can feel Erik’s thigh pressed against his, the seat small and calling for proximity. It’s a relief to be touching him after being without him for so long.

The tram whines and groans and hisses, and then it begins its slow crawl through main street. Charles swallows. “Erik,” he starts, and suddenly he wishes he’d spent more time trying to figure out his words. He can feel Erik’s eyes on him, but doesn’t look back. He’s not sure he could bear to face him, if… “Do you… have a mate?”  
  
The second of silence is too long, and Charles' heart doesn't beat once. “No,” Erik answers, so quick it’s surprising and Charles sits with wide eyes til his mind catches up to him. “No. I do not have a mate.” His voice sounds funny, strange, but Charles can’t figure out why. He’s not sure he can bring himself to care:  _Erik doesn't have a mate. A girlfriend._  Charles shifts, and presses against Erik just that bit more.

Too much, it appears. After a moment Erik pulls his thigh away, keeping his knees together and angled, and it hurts Charles like he’s been thrown against the rockpools.

Erik must sense something, for he clears his throat and continues, “Humans do not call it a mate. When we love someone, and want to have a family with them, we marry them. We have a ceremony, and the wife wears a beautiful gown, and the husband wears a suit.” Erik gestures out the window to the women strolling along the sidewalk, and then to himself and to Charles, tugging lightly at Charles’ brown coat. “They give each other rings,” Erik pauses to thumb at the heavy piece on his index finger, encrusted with amber and adorned with the royal insignia, “And promise to take care of each other.”

“Marriage,” Charles repeats, and processes Erik’s words. “Husband and wife?”  
  
He looks to Erik, but the prince doesn’t smile back at him, like he usually would. Instead he’s staring straight ahead, eyes hard and faraway. “Yes. The man becomes the husband, and the woman becomes a wife. Only a man and a woman can be married.”

 _And to marry is to mate,_ Charles remembers. It sounds like Erik’s reading from a book. 

Charles looks on at the women, with their pink cheeks and full chests and delicate hands. He curls his fingers gingerly against his thigh, crooking them so. His kind don’t differentiate males and females like humans do. It’s strange, this _feeling_ is strange. He feels heartbroken and hot, and like throwing up, all at once. 

By the human’s definition, Charles is not a woman. When Erik dragged him up from the shore, up to the security and shelter of their bathroom, and when his bleeding tail had dried and split into two, scarred legs, he’d not grown breasts, and the point between his thighs had not turned into the flatness attributed to female sex.

 _When it hurts to touch them, but it hurts more not to,_ is what the elders had told him, back when he was young and would sneak from the castle in escape from its empty corridors and lifeless halls. _This is how you know you have found them._  

It’s how Charles knew who Erik was when he saved him from the sinking ship, a moon ago now. Laying with him on the shore, coiled around him, brushing the hair from his eyes and smiling down at him. _His mate._ A century of life alone and now, finally, he’d found the one person made just for him. When Erik woke, and the dainty silver hanging from Charles’ neck and wrists had sung against his skin, it felt like all his pieces were finally fitting together. With the sun warming their skin and turning it gold, that morning had been perfect. 

Erik shifts next to him on the seat, the tram jolts slightly, and he remembers how Erik pulls away from every single one of his touches.

The elders never told him what to do if his soulmate rejected him.

They ride the tram full route, nearly an hour and another half trawling through the kingdom. He’s not sure how exactly it helps, but Charles thinks being encased by metal may have had something to do with calming Erik down from whatever anxiety had been plaguing him earlier. Raven is waiting for them at the palace gates, and while her stoic face reveals nothing Charles can feel the apprehension hidden behind her blue scales and in her clever, guarded head. He watches as Erik gives her a curt nod, and everything about her demeanour shifts and changes - only minutely, but with his telepathy her relief is palpable.

“The royal party from Tauw are to arrive shortly,” she tells Erik, and while Charles doesn’t understand a lick of what she’s saying Erik does, if the sinking of his brow is anything to go by. They walk, and Erik sighs, and Raven keeps her distance. After everything in the tram, in that corridor with its cloudy fountain, Charles wonders if he should, too.

Once inside the grand marble foyer, Erik is whisked away by his duties, but before they part he turns to Charles. He reaches to take his hand, but stops halfway, and the breath Charles sucks feels like ice. “I’ll be busy until dinner,” Erik says slowly. “I’ll have Raven take you to my chambers. Wait there until I come back for you.”

Charles shouldn’t let the words get to him, because he knows Erik doesn’t mean them how they sound.

He’s been in Erik’s chambers once before, but for all he remembers of it this may as well be his first time. As Raven follows him in, he glances around, and recognises the long tapestries on the walls in flashes of fevered memories, remembers the stuffed-full towering bookcases and the rainbow-stained glass windows, framed by thick brown curtains. “Erik will be a few hours,” Raven tells him, “If it gets dark before he’s back, here’s how you operate the lamps.”

The room feels larger once she’s left, and Charles doesn’t miss the soft _click_ emitted by the handle when she’s shut and locked the door behind her.

If he stretches his mind, he can feel every human in each corridor of the castle. The mental blanket is nowhere near as wide as it would be if he was still in the ocean.

He misses the _water_ , Charles reminds himself. Only the water. He knows now, retrospectively, that his family stopped loving him many years ago. The flogging, the banishment; saving Erik from the wreck had been the catalyst, but by that point Charles was as dead as the _Q'ian_  in his mother’s eyes.

Charles thinks on how Erik shies from him, remembers that he’s not a woman, and wonders if losing everything he'd ever known been worth it.

When flicking through books he doesn’t understand makes his fingers numb, and gazing out the windows down at the kingdom and the shimmering ocean that circuits it makes him homesick, Charles eyes Erik’s bed forlornly. The sun is sinking lower and lower with every passing minute taking with it Charles' mood, Erik isn’t back yet, and his stomach is twisting hungrily.

Everything in the room already smells of Erik, his soap, and his natural metallic and heady scent. Breathing him in almost hurts, especially when he knows he'll never get any closer than this.

The mattress is firm, but yields under Charles’ knees when he crawls up onto it. There’s a dip in one side, from Erik’s body, Charles realises, but the other is completely flat, unslept upon. The bed is adorned with pillows scattered and layered haphazardly, the duvet a maroon embroidered with gold threads, soft under him. It feels strangely intimate to lay here, but for what reason Charles doesn’t know. Mated mermaids share beds of seaweed and flattened, spongy coral. Charles wonders if humans do this, too.

With the warm sun spearing through the glass and covering Charles in its glow, it’s not long before he works his boots off, shucks his jacket and waist coat, and settles down on the pillows, curled in towards Erik’s side. Maybe this will be his only opportunity to sleep in Erik’s bed, to smell him like this, because Erik loves pretty women in pretty dresses. That’s what he’d said on the tram.

Before drowsiness weighs down on Charles and pulls his eyelids shut, he wonders, his mind airy and faraway, if it would make a difference if he donned a gown.

*

He’s dreaming of hands on his hips and a mouth over his own when Erik wakes him. “Charles,” part of his mind registers, distant and warm, the accent curling familiarly around the r and the l. He unfurls his mind, takes a slow, deep breath, and lets Erik surround him and fill him completely. “Charles.”

Sluggish as he is words are indiscernible to him, but Charles emits a series of small, quick clicks of acknowledgement as he opens his eyes. Erik is sat close to him on the bed, leaning over him and looking down at him with a calm brow but _something_ in his eyes. _Hunger,_ _want._ Erik’s mind is loud, thinking in fractured, incomplete words Charles can’t understand rather than pictures. They watch one another in silence, time still and stretched, Charles blinking away sleep, Erik breathing hard through his nose; then whatever internal struggle Erik’s fighting with subsides, and he brings his hand to Charles’ forehead, fingers carding through his slightly sweaty hair. 

The sensation of Erik’s skin on his is so intensely good it almost hurts, and Charles gasps quietly. It feels like every empty piece in his chest is filling up to the brim and spilling down through his body, coursing this addictive warmth through every artery and vein and capillary, consuming him entirely.

Erik doesn’t pull his hand away. Instead he brings it down to cup Charles’ cheek, thumb rubbing over the supple, fleshy part, smoothing along his cheekbone. His thoughts are incongruous with his expression; Erik gazes down at him with a small quirk to his lip, watching him unabashedly, like he’s looking his fill. Like when the sun sets, and the gold in the room turns to blacked blue and cold silver, Charles will vanish with it and they’ll never see each other again. 

Erik thumbs his bottom lip, and Charles is sure he’s still asleep.

“I couldn’t bring myself to wake you for dinner. But I’ve brought a tray.” It’s then that Charles finally notices the brown wooden tray laden with steaming bowls of dumplings and thick noodles, and plates of crisp vegetables. Charles pushes himself to sit, and Erik only moves his hand away to stuff soft pillows behind him. When Erik settles the tray over his lap, Charles decides the next time he sees Marie he'll hug her tight for her talents.

As he eats, Erik rises to fold his discarded clothes, wrinkled on the floor and at the bottom of the bed. “I want to apologise for how I behaved today,” he starts, and Charles takes a moment to sift through his words to find their meaning. “I should not have made Raven the subject of my anger. None of it was directed at you. I want you to know that You did nothing wrong.”  _You couldn't._

“It is.. okay,” Charles says between bites. Human forms explete energy so _quickly._ He’s quiet as he thinks on his words, knowing what he wants to say but not knowing how to get his lips and tongue to curl around the sounds. He can see Erik’s patience, but loses his own, and simply pushes to him with his powers, _it meant you were concerned. It meant you cared._  

Erik startles, whether at the new method of communication or Charles’ words or both, Charles isn’t sure. But he nods, and casts Charles’ coat over the back of the desk chair. “Why is the admiral… bad?” he asks, and the moment Erik registers the words he wishes he hadn’t.

“He kills mermaids,” Erik tells him bluntly. Charles doesn’t flinch; it’s what he knows all the humans do. That’s why he was never to go near them. That’s why he was whipped til gashes split his tail; sliced down so far into his flesh with Marko’s blades he couldn’t feel the muscle anymore

 _Unless it is with the intention of drowning one,_ he remembers his mother saying.

But the Prince of Genosha had been the only human to survive that hunt.

Erik turns to him and Charles can’t look away. “But Charles, I promise you - he’ll never know who you are. I’m promise we’ll work all this out.”

When Charles finishes his dinner, Erik takes the tray back down to Marie along with Charles’ gratitude, and leaves him to change into his bedclothes. “The nightdress,” Charles had requested, after a short moment of deliberation, when Erik offered to retrieve his clothes from his quarters. He’d raised his eyebrows, but said nothing, and there was little more that Charles could catch from his mind. 

Charles works the fiddly buttons of his blouse, but pauses before he rolls his breeches down. There’s a slight - but noticeable - bulge filling out the front, between where his thighs meet. It’s almost obtrusive, garish and eye catching. Charles knows the humans look like this, knows that Erik’s breeches look like this, too, if only a little fuller, but he can’t help but feel… strange. Insecure.

He pushes his pants and his underwear down to his ankles and stares at the mirror behind Erik’s changing partition. It’s really not unlike the masculine sex organs he has as a mermaid, Charles thinks, but... It’s just so unnecessary, constantly everted as it is, framed by a small patch of thick, dark hair that trails up to his naval. Erik had been frustratingly vague when telling him about his human body, and its new functions, like he’d been embarrassed. Humans are such sensitive creatures.

Raven’s nightdress falls over him, loose and free and flowing, with a ribbon to tie under breasts he doesn’t have and a seam of silk hemming the top. Billowy sleeves puff over his biceps, tapering down to soft cotton that wraps loosely around his forearms. His shoulders are bare, revealing the angles of his collarbones, the deep hollow of his throat, where his old silver necklaces would have sat perfectly. It wisps around above his knees, soft and airy and free, and reminds Charles of the liberty of the water.

He’s watching himself in the mirror when Erik returns, books to read in hand and a smile quirking the corner of his mouth. Charles looks at him, up and down, catches his eyes on the front of his pants and drags them back to his face. “Can I please buy clothes?”

  

“I already bought you clothes,” Erik states, but he’s still smiling, throwing him glances from the corners of his eyes, and he piles the pillows from the bed on the chaise under the windows.

“I’d like more,” Charles decides, looking back at his reflection, thinking back to their conversation on the tram. Only a man and a woman can marry. Only a man and a woman can be mated. “I’d like a dress.”

Erik is quiet as he starts up the lamps. He’s quiet til he settles on the lounge, when he looks up at Charles and cocks his head. “Of course, we can do that. Anything you want.”

He wants _Erik_ , Charles thinks bleakly. But he knows Erik wants a woman.

So he’ll become a woman, a human woman, Charles decides, and he settles in with a full belly and a new determination in his veins for an evening of romance and tragedy, of maharajas and courtesans, and of star-crossed, impossible loves. He’ll become a woman, and then Erik will love him, too.

* * *

 


	3. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thacmis illustrated some extra scenes from chapters one and two, so for anyone who might have missed them go take a look! They're super cute!! 
> 
> Thanks so much to everyone for your support!! <3

Erik can barely remember the fevered days that followed the shipwreck. His memory of waking up on the beach is muddy, blotchy and faded from his dehydration and delirium.

But he remembers Charles. He remembers being saved.

He remembers that Charles hadn’t been there when Munoz and Summers found him, wrecked by fire and waterlogged by the sea.

He remembers Shaw’s rage.

“I’ll wipe them out,” the admiral had hissed, pacing through the infirmary. He’d punched a steel basin, and the sink bowed in on itself. “None of my men survived. I’ll pay those creatures same respect.”

When Erik tells them, Summers simply presses his mouth into a thin, silent line; Munoz is too focused on nodding that he leaves his smile unconvincing; Raven scoffs, laughs in his face, and says, “Why would a _mermaid_ save a human? You were there to kill them, afterall. You swallowed too much seawater.”

And then, one day and then another later, Summers barges into the infirmary with wild eyes, heedless to the complaints of the nurses; Munoz has worked himself up so much he can’t speak; Raven says only two things but Erik’s heart palpitates and swells and drops all the same: “He’s there.”

All three of his knights had protested Erik rushing to the coastline alone, but after barking a dismissal they’d backed down, and Erik had made it to his chambers, dressed himself, and started the trek from the servant’s courtyard down to the beach before his mind could catch up to him.

The golden sand crunches beneath his boots, and he sinks just slightly with every step. Knowing from experience that the walk of the shore can be completed within two hours at a trot, Erik sucks a breath between his teeth and ignores the tightness in his thighs and back, and pushes on. “The rockpools,” Raven had said with a frown, eyes glassy and distant, like she was playing her memories over and over again, like she’d eventually believe herself, believe what she saw in them. Erik knew exactly where she meant.

It takes him a half hour of trudging through the small dunes and wind-pushed banks til he makes it to the curve of the cliff that obscures the clusters of water-pocked rocks. In that half hour, he’d thought of nothing other than a strange sense of finality, of completion. He’s been itching for this moment ever since he awoke on the beach with a name he’d not known on his tongue and something fierce and pulling in his veins.

There’s something thrilling about it all, too. He should have his sword ready, mind and blade honed alike, poised to take out this creature. But he’s not. His sword is knocking against his thigh, blade in its sheath. 

If the admiral knew… Erik swallows, and skirts a solid chunk of driftwood. The lighthouse comes into view, heading the beginnings of the pools. Every step reveals more of the mollusk-decorated and water-whittled rocks…

Erik can’t help but gasp when he sees him, and if he’d been wielding his sword or gripping a knife he knows it would have speared the sand at the sight of the creature.

With the marigold sun beaming down on him, his skin almost _glitters,_ shimmering like the surface of the ocean. Turned from him, Erik has an unobstructed view of his back, and it’s so easy to be trapped by the way the mermaid’s muscles shift, his shoulder blades rocking as he moves his arms, slotting pieces into his hair. It’s so hard to look away from the line of his spine, trailing it with his eyes, down down down, to where his skin blends into scales that shimmer and flash like the flesh of a cuttle.

He’s humming, Erik realises, and the prince thinks he understands the old tales the peg-legged sailors tell at the taverns by the fisheries, stories of siren songs and sweet deaths. Frozen where he stands, all Erik can do is watch the mermaid as he sings, so quiet it’s as if Erik is only imagining that he hears him. He’s sat in the shallows, just on the side of the pools, singing as he weaves into his hair what Erik thinks might be shells and seastars and pebbles.

He’s beautiful, Erik thinks. _Charles is beautiful._

 

 

The sand crunches underfoot when Erik takes an enchanted step forward, and the spell shatters. The mermaid whips around, pressing his back to the rock and kicking his tail in surprise. “Wait,” Erik calls, the word escaping him before he has time to think, and when he meets the mermaid’s aqua eyes everything inside him rises and falls and drops and stops, _everything stops,_ because within the space of one heavy heartbeat and the next, Erik knows that everything has changed, that nothing will be the same.

A slow smile dawns on the mermaid’s face, splitting his red lips, and his tail pulses in rhythmic shades of blues and purples. Gills on the sides of his throat flutter, so minute, so small, Erik can hardly see them at all. A sudden stream of chittering and chirping slips from his grin. Erik takes a careful step forward, arm outstretched, palm up and placating. Heedless of his boots he steps down into the lapping, frothy shore, listening to Charles’ sounds, catching the way they pick up tempo.

 _Charles._ He remembers those fingers, now tapping at the rocks, on the muscles of his arms, his flat chest, signing a language Erik doesn’t know; but he remembers how they felt combing through his hair and tracing the thin lines of his lips. “You saved me,” Erik says aloud, and when Charles frowns he thinks he’s got it wrong, and a flash of panic flits along his synapses - he’s been lured, it’s a trap-

Then he feels something warm and liquid filling up his mind and sifting through his thoughts. A voice, Charles’ voice, swells in his mind, and Charles smiles again, splitting his cheeks. _Erik._

 _You saved me,_ Erik tries again, thinking slowly, bringing flashes of memories to the forefront of his mind. The burning ship, the frozen water…

 _You found me,_ Charles thinks, and his tail flares gold.

*

For a week Erik ignores Summers’ obvious disapproval, Munoz’ attempts to reason with him, and the unbridled protests of Raven, and soldiers down to the beach without fail every day.

“This is what mermaids _do,_ ” Raven growled, fists shaking at her sides. “They _possess_ you.”

“All we know of mermaids is only what we’ve been lead to believe,” Erik had countered, voice thunderous, but Raven had never flinched at his tone in the past and it would be a poor wager to bet she would now. “Are you really taking Shaw’s view?”

She’d simmered at that, throwing up her hands, snarking about only doing her duty, turning her back. If the display was put on to only make Erik feel guilty, it was poor and unsuccessful.

Maybe she was right, though. Maybe he _is_ possessed.

Charles waits for him at the rock pools, and Erik finds that it doesn’t matter what time he begins his trek, Charles is always there, singing and splashing in the water, basking in the warmth of the sunlight.

He’d never felt this much sun in all his long life, he’d told Erik, lying on his back in the shallows, letting the shore chase his skin. He’d forgotten what the breeze felt like, what the air smelt like, up here.  

Communication is the first hurdle Erik had to learn how to jump. Charles’ telepathy is peculiar and alien initially, but it soon becomes a familiar weight that coils through his mind, and Erik finds himself thinking as if Charles can hear when he’s back at the palace and alone.

“You’re not like the others,” Erik tells him one day, out loud, half his mind sure that Charles won’t understand him. Charles rolls onto his belly, chin in palm, his translucent fins carding through the water.

 _Neither are you,_ Charles pushes into his mind. His free hand trails up to Erik’s knee, where Erik’s rolled his breeches up and it’s bared. Charles’ skin is neither hot nor cold, something in between. When Charles touches him it’s like he’s touching a firework.

Erik finds himself watching Charles more than any self-respecting man should. Charles’ body is comprised of lines of toned muscle. His thick skin doesn’t obscure the seams of flesh beneath it. But he doesn’t have the markings, Erik notes, and he thinks he can assume Charles’ brow has never fallen in a hard, concentrated furrow. His eyes sparkle like the water when the sun catches it like he's never seen death.

Charles isn’t one of the warriors, the fighters, the kind of merperson Erik was sent to kill; the kind that drowned his sailors that night. He doesn’t know why Erik was on the ship. He wasn’t meant to be there that night.

“Erik,” is the first word Charles learns to say out loud, his voice hoarse from disuse, accented foreignly. The way he says his name makes something in Erik’s chest so tight it’s a struggle to breathe.

He’s very physical, Erik learns quickly enough, always with his hand on Erik’s leg or foot or arm. At first Erik passes it off as a simple curiosity for human form, a kinetic way to learn the parts of a body he might not have had the chance to encounter before; but the touches always linger, and when Erik looks at the mermaid’s face there’s pink up on his cheeks and something eager swimming in the blue of his eyes.

It feels like his breath is being ripped from him every time he pulls away.

*

It takes until the fourth day when Erik’s mother finds him in the kitchens - a step away from slinking out the door - for reality to catch up to Erik and the full weight of his actions to settle on him. Edie watches him in a quiet that speaks more than he knows she’d ever say aloud. Holding his wrist, she keeps him locked there in that tense moment, but every second he counts is a second he’s not with Charles.

Eventually, her grip turns lax, and her hands fold themselves into the long sleeves of her robes. “The girl from Tauw,” she reminds him softly, and Erik nods, turning away, catching a glimpse of Marie and her girls nestled at the back of the room.

 _You must marry soon,_ his father always says, each time a hint more urgent and frustrated than the last. _Shaw is already favoured too much. He could usurp the throne any day._

Jakob’s words echo in his mind as he trudges down to their meeting point through the back pathways. The way his heart beats harder, breaths quicken, and skin sings when he sees Charles, circling on his back in the water and oblivious to his voyeurism makes him nauseous. His perversion is already sick enough. To feel this way for a mermaid--

Erik could kill him and be done with it all. This feeling, the rumours; the whispers McCoy hears from the fisheries. _The pansy prince was the only survivor of the attack, the one that sides with the merfolk._ He could sell Charles’ tail at market, slice him up and bottle his tears to cure his good citizens. He could put Shaw in his place.

When Charles spots him up on a dune and smiles, it lights up every single dark part of Erik and burns away every twisted thought, leaving only a smoldering, red heat in Erik’s chest, pulsing in time with his heartbeat.

Erik knows that there’s something beyond him that connects them, something he can’t comprehend, only feel, something heavy in his chest that ceases its rustling when he spies Charles shimmering in the ocean, and starts up once he turns his back. He loses time sitting there talking with him, watching him swim, listening to him sing as he slots seastars behind his ears. “Charles,” Erik begins quietly, and almost regrets it when the mermaid stops his song. “Why do the humans and the merfolk despise each other?”

For such a glum topic, Charles doesn’t stop smiling. He turns his attention to a shell, turning it over in his fingers, and just when Erik thinks he’s not going to get an answer, Charles opens his mouth.

 

 

“Humans killed our _q_ _’ain_ ,” Charles says, inspecting the shell. “We love treasure. We will protect it.”

_We will avenge what is taken from us._

“It was your queen who turned on us, singing our sailors to their deaths, who ruined the alliance when she set your people against us,” Erik murmurs, drawing on every lesson with his history tutor, thinking up every word Shaw ever barked at him at the academy. It doesn’t add up.

There’s a crack, and suddenly the shell in Charles’ hand is crushed in his grip. His smile is gone, and there are shadows under his eyes that Erik hadn’t noticed before. “ _Q’ian_ would not do that.”

Erik has to fix this, he has to get Charles to smile again. Quickly, he shucks his coat, pulling off his boots and socks at the heel and tossing them back up on the dune. He rolls his breeches up over his knees, and steps down into the water, closer to Charles. He doesn’t miss the way Charles’ gaze slides to him, to his legs, covered in dark hair, or the way his eyes linger on his chest and his arms, sheathed by his white blouse.

“Tell me about her,” Erik says quietly, trying to pull his gaze from Charles' flashing tail but like always finding himself entranced by the colours. The translucent fins at his hips brush Erik’s leg as he wades over to the small boulders fringing the rockpools, and for a breathless, frozen moment he’s sure the sparks that flare under his skin and chase up his thigh are felt mutually, if the way Charles is staring wide-eyed at him is any clue.

Erik can feel the pull in his chest.

He remembers the princess from the mainland, remembers his duty, remembers that Charles isn’t sick like him, and ignores it.

“I do not know the human words,” Charles tells him when Erik sits down.

“So tell me, up here.” Erik taps his temple. And Charles does.

It’s the strangest sensation, so incomparable to anything he’s ever felt before. It’s like he knew everything all along, and Charles is simply bringing the memories to the surface. Words like _benevolent_ and _beautiful,_ images of a woman with glowing eyes and white hair, her opalescent tail leaving a plume of shimmering, cloudy white water behind her. “They killed her a long time away.”

“Ago,” Erik corrects, eyes distant and glassy, lost in a memory not his own. “I’m sorry.”

*

Charles pulls him into the water the following day, now adorned with necklaces that all link together, and two thick, silver cuffs that circle his biceps. A thin belt of silver, embedded with jewels Erik can’t place and a skirt of small, dangling lines of chain catches on the swells of Charles’ hips, where his skin blends into his perfunctory, contented blue tail, the same shade as his eyes. Erik can feel each little link in each strand of silver, can feel the way they sit against Charles’ skin. They clink lightly when he shifts, and Erik tries not to stare too long.

But when he looks from Charles’ body to his face, he only wants to gaze at him that much more. It’s as if simply his visage can fill Erik and power him; like a glimpse could fuel him for days.

No, not days, Erik realises as Charles’ thin fingers curl around his wrist and pull him close, into the waters. He knows he couldn’t last an evening without seeing the mermaid.

Charles’ hand comes to his waist, leading him down, deeper, the sea climbing up his thighs and then his hips and then his chest. A small part of Erik’s mind wonders if Charles will drown him.

Erik doesn’t think he’d care if he did.

 _Not that,_ says the mermaid, and now Erik can feel his tail against his calf, coiling around it, his boots forgotten back up on the shore. This close he smells like salt, and something clean, enticing. Erik wants to taste him.

“Then what are you doing,” he murmurs instead. He hardly means to say it at all. His eyes are stuck on Charles and those red lips of his, at the way his cheeks heat and sparkle in the sun.

But Charles freezes, and Erik feels his smooth tail slide away so quick Erik has to spend a moment wondering if it was ever there to begin with. The circles under his eyes darken. There’s a light bruise high up on his cheek that Erik hadn’t noticed before.

He can feel Charles picking around in his mind, searching for his answer, recounting the steps that got them here to try and figure out where he now stands.

“Swimming,” squeaks Charles, suddenly so uncertain, sounding _pained_ almost. He recoils from Erik like he’s been struck.

Erik’s missed something vital and he knows it. Charles slinks away and dives beneath the surface, leaving him alone for so long Erik doesn’t know if he’ll even return, and easy waves push against his chest. Charles’ mouth had been so close to his own.

He’s _relieved_ Charles pulled away, he _has to be_ . Humans don’t kiss mermaids. Humans don’t _fall in love_ with mermaids.

The sun has started to inch closer and closer to the sea and Erik has settled on the sand by the time Charles resurfaces. He looks puffed, skittish, his eyes never focusing in one spot as he glances at the rockpools, the shore, the cliff, and out at the expanse of water behind him. Right when Erik hurries to the shore, right when he’s about to say, _I’m sorry, whatever it was I did, I’m sorry,_ Charles whispers, “They know,” and the fear lacing his tone tightens Erik’s throat and traps his words.

“Who?” Erik asks, frowning, trying to catch Charles’ gaze. “What’s wrong?” he demands when Charles doesn’t respond, wading into the water. Charles splashes in his clumsy attempt to get away from him.

 _Go,_ Charles is all tells him, eyes staring unseeing at the water around him. A smear of purple is swelling below his eye socket. The jewellery is gone.

And then, with one final, heavy glance at Erik, Charles is, too.

Sunset hits, and so does the cold, heavy weight of dread. Something is wrong. Something is very, terribly wrong.

The water hits him hard when he dives down into the sea, the tide sucking him out in its momentum. The sting of the salt is almost unbearable, until eventually his eyes adjust; but there’s nothing to look at, only blurred black.

He can’t see Charles. He can’t see the ground. He hadn’t realised he’d been this far out.

There’s a piercing shriek that carries through the water like sonar, and Erik’s blood runs colder than the black around him. His hearing isn’t so keen that can place it, that he can determine where he is, and he can see no movement ahead of him. Charles couldn’t have gotten that far-

There’s another warbling scream. His fingertips turn numb, and his kicking legs feel like they’re booted with lead. His lungs start to burn, a headache blossoming at the top of his neck, unfurling black ink through his brain and filling all the spaces clean oxygen should. If he narrows his eyes he can see something shifting not so far from him. He has to find Charles. He _has to find Charles._

Something coils around his arm and he gasps a lungful of water, and then he’s being lifted up up up, out of the black, and now there’s more screaming only it’s _words,_ words he should understand--

Erik knows that voice. He’s heard it every day of his life ever since he was a child. Raven throws him against the sand, and the water surges from his lungs and spills in coughs and splutters over his chin.

“What were you _doing,_ ” she’s shrieking, rolling him violently to his side to retch and heave. “You were _dying,_ Erik!”

He knows. “Charles,” he tries, his throat wrecked, and her voice goes fuzzy as she starts spewing a tangent. Charles. Charles is in trouble.

“I don’t think so,” she squawks, pushing him back into the sand when he tries to sit. Her robes are drenched. “I don’t care what you think you were doing, but you’re not going anywhere except home.”

When Erik looks at her, for all her harsh words, he can see the panic in her eyes, notes the way her body starts to tremble with unused adrenaline. Her chest is heaving.

“Charles was screaming,” he wheezes, and only now do the lines of her body soften - to a degree. He can still tell she’s clenching her jaw. “Something was wrong.”

“Whatever it was, it’s not your concern.” She lets him rest a moment before standing, sighing, and shaking out her remaining nerves. “He’s a mermaid. He was never your priority.”

 _She’s right,_ a small part of him whispers.

Knowing that she is doesn’t stop this feeling, however.

Raven throws his arm over her shoulders and pulls him up, and he takes a heavy step, and then another, and soon they’re rounding the cliff and heading back to the docks. The evening sky is streaked with red, and the colours dance along the flat surface of the ocean.

Charles doesn’t resurface.

***

In all of Genosha, there is but one seamstress whose gowns of wafting lace and billowing silk befit royalty. Her corsets are crafted from the finest whale bone and brass, bodices laced with the smoothest ribbons, with skirts that are always dyed the richest of pigments that flow from the tapered waists of pretty women like they were born to wear them. The boutique is situated in the main street of the fashion district, and can always be identified by the steady stream of customers queued along the sidewalk, if not for the eye catching silver facade that glitters in the sunlight.

It’s simply an unfortunate foul of nature that the gruff, _men's_  tailor next door to Ororo Munroe’s affluent store is better at dressmaking than she is.

“Run that by me again, bub,” grunts Logan Howlett, swinging his gaze from Erik down to Charles. Charles is staring at the man’s chest like it’s going to burst from its tight white blouse and waist coat, and rain buttons throughout the shop.

Erik clears his throat. “We’d like a dress,” he repeats, trying to keep a level mind. This is for Charles. He will put up with the tailor. “For him,” he continues, nodding to where Charles is standing close at his side.

Howlett scrutinises him for a moment, frowning, teeth chomped from habit around an imaginary cigar. “Is that what the royals are into now-days?”

The spark of hot indignation that bursts in Erik’s chest catches easily on the anger that is always simmering below the surface. “We will go to Munroe,” Erik threatens through his grit teeth. He can feel Charles prodding his mind curiously, but doesn’t relent in his staring match with the tailor.

Howlett doesn’t speak for a moment, simply looking between Erik and the boy next to him. “No need to be so defensive,” he huffs, cocking his head back behind him. “Come on. I’ll see what we can do.”  

Howlett’s store is only a fraction of the size of Munroe’s boutique, but it’s a niche Erik was lucky enough to find, and operates from a strict clientele. Mannequins line the foyer, advertising all manners of three-pieces, suits, and the trends of the mainland. Charles’ eye is drawn to everything, and Erik almost walks on the mermaid’s heels to ensure he doesn’t fall behind.

On the other side of the counter is a large oak door, carvings at face level making little shaped windows looking into the work room beyond. Erik can feel each tumbler roll and shift as Howlett turns the lock and shoulders past, into a shop that smells of clean soap and faintly of leather. In the corner a gramophone scratches along a record, Erik’s grip on the needle catching in each little groove. Grand mirrors are mounted at the junction of two angled walls, a small wooden stool in the alcove, and a kit on a table. Here, the mannequins sport the curves of an ample chest and thin waists, and don all manner of feminine fashions.

“What were you after?” Howlett grunts, wheeling away a brass rack of incomplete gowns, all wrapped in white sheets. When Charles doesn’t respond, Erik nudges him lightly, and he snaps his gaze from the pretty dresses to focus on Howlett, his eyes lighting up.

The rational part of Erik knows that Charles is simply responding to him, acknowledging him, and if he regards him with those wide blue eyes and that demure little smile, it isn’t because of anything other than Charles being polite. The irrational portion of him, which takes up an inaptly large part of his conscious, can’t control the flare of iniquitous jealousy.

Howlett snorts, and Erik remembers that he has absolutely no right whatsoever to feel like this.

“I do not… I,” begins Charles, and Howlett’s heavy eyes slink down to him. Erik’s nails dig half-crescents into the flats of his palms. “I’m unsure.”

“That’s alright,” says Howlett, settling his arm over Charles’ shoulders and guiding him to the mannequins. “Just have a look, and chose what you like.” He throws a _glance_ over Charles’ head to Erik. “Prince Erik is graciously paying me by the hour. Take your time.”

If the tailor doesn’t end up with his tape around his neck and his scissors in his throat, it might be a good day yet, Erik thinks.

Howlett walks Charles along the mannequins, commenting on styles and types. “No plunge,” he decides, looking down at Charles’ chest. Erik feels hot, and then guilty. Low square and v-cut necklines, puffed sleeves and panniers and hooped skirts. Erik gets lost in how quickly Howlett describes each dress, and he can only imagine Charles is caught up similarly.

Erik watches from a distance as Charles rifles through the racks, Howlett describing the threadcount of materials and where they came from, places lost on Charles, but he fingers the ruffles and smoothes over the flanks of dresses with careful, appreciative touches. “I like this,” Charles comments, gazing at a white frock with lavender trim. Compared to the poofs of lace and silk on the stand next to it, the dress is modest, with a frilly neckline and a tight waist. The sleeves puff, brought in with purple ribbon around the arms, violet bows stippled along the hem.

The bulking tailor nods, working to get the dress off. “Looks about your size as it is,” he grunts, slinging it over his hairy forearm. “Might have to fix up the shoulders,” he adds after a moment, rubbing his chin. “We’ll see how it fits you now.”

When Charles starts to peel off his clothes, Erik takes an involuntary step forward, and he feels Howlett’s eyes hot on him. “So protective,” Howlett comments, helping Charles out of his coat, casting it over a decorative partition.

“I need help with the buttons,” Charles murmurs after a quiet moment. Howlett leers over his shoulder at Erik, and if he wasn’t so damn good at his job, and if Charles didn’t want this dress, the man would be bleeding out on the floor by now.

At least, that’s Erik’s fantasy. They’re either obscenely violent, or-

Under his blouse, Charles’ skin is almost opalescent, his flesh toned and supple, and stippled with the odd freckle that Erik wonders about when he received. Howlett’s watching him, just as hungrily as Erik is, and some fiery part of him that he always tries to keep down seethes _Charles is mine_ and before he can help it Erik is shouldering in, past Logan, and starts working on Charles’ belt.

“You have to learn to do this yourself,” he mutters. Charles braces a hand on his shoulder, as he steps one leg out of the breeches, then the other.

His abdomen is so close Erik could lean forward and lick it, dip his tongue into Charles’ naval and feel him squirm, trace the point of it along and up to lave over a pale orange nipple. His skin is so tender he could suck a hickey anywhere he desired, Erik thinks.

Erik takes a breath and steps back. He glances up at Charles. Charles is looking down at him like he knows.

He doesn’t look at Charles until the dress is on.

When he does, if keeping his thoughts tame before was a struggle, now it’s a war. The sickening self-disgust hits then, but he still can’t bring himself to look away.

Charles’ waist is slight as it is, but the way the sash on the dress hugs it tight makes him look twice as small. The flare of the skirt and its supporting petticoat accentuates his hips with width that he doesn’t have, and Erik wants to settle his hands there and pull Charles close. The neckline is cut low, despite Howlett’s protests, and Erik wants to trace the faint line of cleavage down with his tongue, as far as it goes, press kisses against his skin and bury his head in his chest.

Erik’s knuckles are white. The _moment_ Charles steps into a dress and he gets like _this_. “What do you think, Erik?” Charles calls, and how can he look away when his voice sounds that sweet? How can Erik think about pulling him apart with kisses and bites when he’s this innocent?

Charles is looking at him like Erik’s opinion is the only thing that matters, like Erik’s decision is imperative, influential. He swallows, clears his throat, and nods. “You look beautiful.”

It’s the right thing to say. Charles beams radiantly, whirling around to look in the mirrors, the plume of the skirt following him in a gentle waft.

Howlett sidles up to him as Charles inspects himself. “Where did you find him?” he asks, idly pulling at the thick, intricately embroidered brocade of a winter dress, looking for catches or missed knots, but keeping his attention obviously on Erik.

“You wouldn’t believe me,” Erik mutters back.

From his periphery he can see Howlett shrug a broad shoulder. “Lot of things are hard to believe in this world, bub.”

“Not for Sebastian Shaw." Now Logan turns on him, eyebrows raised.

He glances at Charles, standing up on the stool spinning. “What have you done, Erik?”

Charles steps down to his toes and starts towards them, gazing down at the way the skirt moves with him. “I don’t know,” admits Erik, but when Charles smiles up at him he thinks that whatever it is it’s worth it.

“You’re a bit tight at the shoulders,” Howlett comments, circling Charles and making him giggle. “We can fix that with a gusset. Otherwise, you’re perfect.”

“Thank you,” says Charles softly, and the warmth of his smile sends any of the dark fears crawling up in Erik shying away. “May I have it?”

“That one is just display,” the tailor explains, “But it fits you well enough. Let me fix it up, and it’s all yours.”

The dress is accompanied by a pair of white heels, stockings, and gloves. “And a hat,” Howlett tells him, fixing a broad-brimmed sun hat, trimmed with purple ribbon and bedecked with stems of lavender, over his messy curls. Charles reaches up to tentatively run his fingers along the thin edge, his eyes upward. Erik sighs.

“Bleed me dry,” he mutters, but when Charles turns to him and wiggles his gloved fingers, not one part of him is hot with frustration; only tight with his own internal conflict.

“The patronage of his Highness is always greatly treasured,” says Howlett through a crooked grin. Charles is already sitting to pull the stockings on, the airy material gliding up his thick calves and the thousand little cuts they bear, the lacy trim sitting high up on his toned, scarred thighs. Erik licks his lips, and Charles blinks up at him with those pretty gemstone eyes and smiles at him with that mouth Erik wants to bruise with kisses.

He can feel Howlett watching him steadily. Erik can hear him sigh, mutter something, and stalk over with heavy footfalls to his kit, but the tailor says nothing, and that’s the way it should be.

With every passing day that Erik goes unwed, the whispers that fill the streets of his kingdom grow louder and louder. A small part of him thinks, _let them talk,_ and Erik believes that piece of him takes up residence in his heart. The better half of him turns his head, looks at the mannequins and the oak door buffeting the outside world and all its prejudices, and tells him that _Charles isn’t worth it._

He knows with a conviction that spills from his chest and fills every part of him that Charles is worth the sun and every silver star hanging in the sky, and like the moon over the ocean, has the power to turn the tides of Erik’s will. Denying it doesn’t change a thing.

***

Charles isn’t by the rockpools the next day. Erik had run from Marie’s kitchen the moment dawn crept up from the horizon to fill the sky and beckon the day, but the beach is empty, the rockpools still, the waves licking their lazy way up onto the sand to wet the toes of Erik’s boots.

Erik’s chest heaves, eyes wide as they scan the calm flat of the ocean. Idly, he remembers the meeting he’s to attend after breakfast. _Of the utmost importance,_ the telegram read.

Shaw can wait, Erik thinks, and he falls back on the rocks, sitting in a dry patch, resigned to hold out. Charles will come. Charles always comes.

It’s only when his lips are cracking, his cheeks hot with sunburn, and the roof of his mouth tastes of metal that he thinks, with the sun inching closer and closer to the west, that maybe, _not today._

Raven finds him - it’s not a task for her anymore - and he can barely hear her berating over the ominous mantra caught on a loop in his mind, played to the sound of shrill shrieking.

_Charles wasn’t there. Charles didn’t come._

“Oh, no,” Raven chortles the following day, eyes bulging with incredulity. “You’re not going down there. You’re not wasting another day and flirting with sunstroke for a _mer-_ ”

Erik cuts her off by slamming his hand over her mouth. The courtyard where she caught him is quiet, and they’re alone, but he won’t risk it.

“I don’t care what Charles is,” he says, slow and careful and warning. “Something is _wrong_.”

When he can slip away from the castle, Erik edges the gardens til he finds the willow tree that reminds him of the snow of the mainland. Parting the chains of white flowers and stepping to the forgotten marble balcony, Erik holds his breath as he crosses the space to the railing, almost not wanting to peer over out of fear of what he’ll find...

Nothing. Water washes over the rocks and fills their craters, creating homes for the crabs and snails and seastars. He spies no familiar tail cutting through the water, no mess of brown, windswept hair filled with shells.

The scent of the sea hangs on the breeze, and as it ruffles Erik’s hair, brings with it a new thought. He doesn’t know how he didn’t realise it before.

_Charles was the one screaming. Charles can’t come._

When Charles doesn’t come to shore the day after, and then the day after that, Erik’s patience is so taut it’s begun to fray. He snaps when he speaks, paces the rooms, never sitting still for a moment. “You’re only going to make your own condition worse,” Raven tries, but her attempt is futile; Erik hardly even hears her over the thundering of his pulse hammering away in his ears.

He can’t send out a search party, for someone not his own, for a _mermaid._ If the patrols did find him anywhere near the coastline, his tail would be speared by a thick, jagged harpoon, and he’d be dragged ashore to be cut up and sold, or simply executed to the cheers of the old sailors. Maybe they'd leave him in the sun to burn. Not even Erik can overpower the admiral’s hold on the navy, its loyalty to him or the steady stream of propaganda Shaw has used for decades to condition half the kingdom to his bidding. Erik can’t change a thing, not while he remains a prince.

Erik remembers that if he doesn’t marry soon, it won’t be long before Shaw creeps from his shadows and cuts him down.

“He was your friend,” Raven eventually concedes that evening, sitting down on the chaise in Erik’s room and trying her hardest to comfort him. “Maybe he realised that humans and mermaids can no longer be that way.”

Erik clicks his tongue, runs a hand through his sweaty, oily hair, and turns sharply to cross the room between the window and the door. “It wasn’t that. We-” And what had they done? What would have they done, had Charles not spooked, had Charles not fled?

Raven’s his best friend, but if Charles’ mouth had been any closer, had the flat of his chest been solid against Erik, Erik’s not sure he could ever tell her.

“He was being chased,” Erik says instead, adamantly, running his memories over and over trying to find the catch, the grey space where his illusive answers lie. “‘They know’, is what he said. He needs my help, Raven-”

She stands and steps over to him, settling a heavy hand on his shoulder to keep him still. “There’s nothing you can do for him, Erik, you need to realise this. The water is his home. It’s where he belongs.” _Not with you,_ she doesn’t say aloud, but she doesn’t need to.

Because she’s right, and the sooner Erik lets this go, the better it’ll be for everyone. There’s nothing to come from it, save for the inevitable destruction the kingdom would fall to should Charles ever be found as Erik’s friend, or… as his lover. He’d do the entire lineage shame, caught with a mermaid in his bed. Or in his _bathroom_? Erik swallows and tries to forget the thought. Princes do not marry mermaids, and princes can never marry men.

*

Three days pass and Erik does not go to the beach or even to the balcony, not once. _This is good for you,_ he tells himself, the times he catches himself staring out the windows at the indigo ocean, or absentmindedly running his hands over the parts of his body that Charles had touched those days ago, so close in the water. Not seeing Charles is like being weaned off an addiction, and the withdrawals cause him sickness and pain in equal amounts.

But, for the good of his kingdom, and for the good of his heart, he ignores how it sings and aches and hollows out his chest, and he busies himself in his diplomacy. On one cloud-filled night when he wakes with a gasp and sweat dripping from his temples, with Charles in his mind and a heavy tightness between his thighs, he chases the mermaid’s image, shuts his eyes to imagine him there atop him, and pretends his hand is not his own. He allows himself that, and feels sick for it.

He comes quietly with the part of his hand that lies below his thumb between his grinding teeth, and when he finishes with a shaking breath Erik feels the weight of his own disgust settling down on him, stifling, and replacing the phantom heaviness of Charles over him. Casting back his quilt and sheet, Erik swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands on quivering muscles, stepping into breeches, throwing his nightshirt haphazardly over the partition and pulling on a cream coloured work shirt, leaving the collar open and the cuffs undone.

He can hear the beginnings of a storm as he pulls on his boots, the slow rumblings of the skies overhead growing in volume and frequency. The brass clock on his desk reads three at night through the dim, and Erik knows Raven will be asleep, unable to talk him down and bring him reason, remind him why he shouldn’t be doing this.

But his mind feels heavy, shared; like he’s been opened and someone else is peering in and hearing his thoughts. He flexes his fingers, but it still feels like there’s another palm pressed against his own.

Stalking through the corridors, down the flights of stairs, slipping into Marie’s kitchen with a flick of his wrist and fingers splayed and Erik is past the courtyard, running down the track to the shore before he realises where he is. The waves are rough, crashing off in the distance to the sounds of the rumbling skies, and the first spits of rain streak his shirt and turn the material grey. The moon is obscured by the heavy clouds, and Erik stumbles as he runs, boots catching on roots and the wooden planks that serve as steps down to the sand. The presence in his mind calls louder, sings brighter, and the sick feeling in his chest drops to his gut.

Erik knows that he’s not only being guided by his instinct now. He recognises that delicate softness in his mind, now bloated and coarse, desperate, and he hears the words he’s known all along, finally lets them in, and finally lets his heart take precedence.

_Charles was the one screaming. Charles can’t come._

_Charles is dying._

The sand sinks around his boots as he sprints across the dunes, trying to catch his footfalls and drag him back. The cliff comes into view, and the rain hits his face like arrows, blinding his vision and filling his mouth. His thighs are hard and tight, aching sharply, but he powers on, shielding his face as he whips around, chasing the shore with his eyes.

“Charles!” Erik cries, but his voice is lost to the wind. Erik can feel the mermaid weakening in his mind, slipping from him, and Erik sloshes down into the water, running to the rockpools. The water is as black as the sky, and Erik can barely see his own hand in front of him in the dark and with the rain greying his vision, but he presses on, wading out around the crumbling rocks that splay around this part of the coast. The lighthouse offers a beam of silver that cuts through the night, dancing around the choppy water, circling the space he knows Charles has to be lying within. It swings its course, chasing the waves, and offering only a second and another for Erik to see his path.

Erik grips the jagged rocks as he steps further and further out into the sea, palms cutting on the mollusks and grazing along the crumbling edges when he slips, shouting Charles’ name, over and over and over. Charles has almost completely faded from his mind now, only leaving a lingering impression that Erik clutches and tries to chase.

And then, as he circles the vast pools, he sees him, wedged between two boulders and partway onto the shore. The lighthouse catches Charles’ slack form, and then casts him into darkness once more; but Erik homes in on him, ignoring the way the soles of his waterlogged boots slip over the floor. A sudden wave pushes him against the rockpools, and when it drags back he loses his footing and goes under, sucked out further, submerged in the darkness. The water stings his eyes and washes down his nose and throat, burning as he splutters and it fills his lungs-

But then Charles pulses brightly in his mind, like a flame before it’s snuffled out, and Erik grips the iron and copper in the rocks and drags himself to them, kicking at the solid ground beneath him, and bursting from the currents. He drags himself up to the flat rocks, paying only part of his mind to where his boots fall, narrowly avoiding snapping an ankle on several blind and fumbled occasions.

Erik’s memory here has faded. He supposes it has something to do with Charles, his abilities, and not wanting Erik to remember him like that. But he can recall the way Charles’ fevered skin had felt in his grip as he pulled him from the rocks, dragging him from the shore, through the crunching, wet sand watching as blood washed down to the frothy tide. Erik does remember the broken moan that had crept from his dry throat, and the way blackened blood spurted and dribbled from the gashes across his tail.

He remembers the moment he realised that Charles must have been lying on the beach for days.

Even in the dim, Erik can see each vein like a spiderweb of blue and green strewn underneath his white, sweaty skin. The cuts are so deep Erik almost can’t bear to inspect them for long, his stomach dropping and rolling and his throat tight against bile. His eyes are glassy and lifeless, staring up at Erik, yellow fringing each faded iris.

 _He’s dying,_ Erik thinks weakly. And he doesn’t know what to do.

He presses the flats of his palms over Charles’ sternum, pushes down in rhythmic pulses, chasing his flickering heartbeat. His mouth is dry with windburn when Erik presses their lips together - half a thought comes to him, but fades with his surging fear. Charles whimpers softly, and with a ragged breath Erik draws him into his arms. His greying tail droops over Erik’s forearm, hanging limply, like his arm does when Erik stands on shaking legs and holds him to his chest. Pure adrenaline is what keeps his steps landing one in front of the other as he skirts the rockpools, spitting rain out of his mouth. Fear keeps his muscles working, makes it easy to ignore how they smart and ache. Love is what pushes him up the shore, over the grassy knolls that flank the beach, and into the servants’ courtyard. Love is what keeps him praying, pleading, pushing everything he’s feeling to Charles to keep him alive.

Charles is weak in his mind, their tether frayed down and on the brink of snapping. Erik kicks the back door through in time with his powers tearing apart the locks. Rain sprays and splatters over the stone floor of the kitchens, Erik silhouetted by a jagged streak of lightning spearing the black sky. He sets Charles down on the longtable, hisses his breaths through his grinding teeth, watches on with such a cold, draining sense of helplessness; Charles is dying, and he doesn’t know what to do.

It feels like he’s dying, too.

Maybe that’s why it’s a struggle to remember; maybe he _was_ dying, and his memories turned white and patched in time with Charles’ soul as it withered. The blood on Erik’s hands had caked in his hair from where he’d gripped it with trembling fists, smeared across his cheeks and turned his lips metallic.

Erik thinks back now, and can’t link the time between begging with broken words and stinging eyes for Charles to stay with him and when Marie had burst into the kitchen, pulling on her gloves, asking too many questions for Erik to keep up with. Darwin and Alex had been there, too, lifting Charles by his tail and his armpits under Marie’s direction. Raven appeared and tried to ask what was going on, but Erik remembers pushing her aside to get to Charles, ignoring her in favour of counting every shallow breath puffed by Charles’ failing lungs. One, two, three - as long as he keeps breathing, he’s alive. As long as he breathes, everything is okay.

Marie takes them to an abandoned bathroom not so far from the servant’s quarters. It smells of damp, and metallic with iron and old piping, and then sick with blood.

Raven is still demanding to know what’s going on, her attention swinging from Erik to Charles, finally caught by the way the mermaid has started convulsing on the tiled floor. Marie has a kit, and is dabbing thick wads of cloth with some kind of antiseptic, pressing it over the thickest of Charles’ cuts. Darwin and Alex are struggling to hold Charles’ chest down flat, trying to keep him still, and Erik wants to cry out _stop,_ that they’re hurting him, that Charles _can’t breathe,_ but he feels the burning of wounds being cleaned like they’re his own, is stifled under a phantom weight on his chest, and stops completely when Charles’ head lolls to the side and their eyes lock, panic with panic, grey on faded, dying grey.

With sudden, inexplicable clarity, Erik hears Charles’ voice in his head, and he says, _I am the Q’ian’ee._

***

Charles changes back into his suit as Howlett fixes him his dresses, after the tailor has taken his measurements and settled himself at his desk, sewing gussets and letting hems. He circles the room, picking at dresses that catch his eye but always putting them back; frocks and gowns and little summer dresses Erik can envision him dancing around him. He swallows, and shakes his head when Charles isn’t looking, too busy rubbing at his chin and looking in mirrors, trying to clear away the image before Charles sees it.

“You may have any dress you like,” Erik reminds him softly,  pulling out an aqua, skin-tight gown. It shimmers with sequins and puffs at the shoulders of the long, arm-length sleeves. “There’s to be a gala the night after tomorrow. What do you think of this?”

He opens his mind for Charles, playing images of vast ballrooms and beautiful people, their fingers curled around flutes of champagne, automatonic bands and hand-powered gramophones. Charles’ eyes almost sparkle at the thought.

That same quizzical pull makes Erik’s hand twitch where it falls at his side. Charles fingers brush his when he takes the hanger, holding the gown up to his chin and inspecting himself in the mirror. “A gala,” he repeats, nodding, returning the gown for Erik to cart. “Will there be… women?”

There’s a lump in his throat and a sudden flare of pain spearing in his chest, but Erik swallows, steadies himself, and shuts his mind abruptly. “Why?” he queries, trying a laugh, but his hands are shaking and he doesn’t want to acknowledge what for. “Do you think you’d like a girl-friend?”

Charles frowns, passing over another dress. Then he looks up at Erik. “But I already have you.”

Charles doesn’t wait for a response, turning back to the racks and pulling a yellow frock under his chin, watching his reflection and trying a smile, dipping his knees in a pose. Erik’s palms feel sweaty, his mouth drier than bone, and he tries to look somewhere else, _anywhere else,_ but he can’t.

_I already have you._

 

 

He doesn’t mean it the way Erik thinks he does, the way his heart yearns for him to. He doesn’t love Erik. Because Erik is a man, and Charles’ kind… despite the pull, despite the tether between their minds, despite the way Erik feels when Charles touches him… Charles’ kind aren’t like that. They wouldn’t be like that.

It’s just Erik. He’s alone in this - and so he should be.

Erik remembers the tome he’d had McCoy track down for him, now lying in the desk draw of his study. It’s nearly a century old, if the script and binding is any kind of indication, pages loose, and whatever information it holds has no doubt been rendered redundant with time, but it’s a better source than anything currently in Genosha. There’s little left in the kingdom that tells a reliable, unbiased tale of the merfolk. Shaw had made certain of that.

Charles said his _Q’ian,_ the queen of the merfolk, would never harm a human, respected the alliance, and certainly would not drown Genoshan sailors on a whim. “The humans started the chaos; they are wanton for it.” The expression on Charles’ face had Erik believing him without a second thought.

Logan comes and takes the dresses from Erik with a promise that he’ll have them done by tomorrow morning. Charles looks almost bereaved to see the dresses go.

“We’ll come back after breakfast,” Erik tells him with an amused little smile, squeezing his shoulder. Charles sighs and leans into the contact. “So impatient.”

Charles huffs, clicks his tongue, and loops his arm with Erik’s.

***

Erik sits with him through the first night. He cleans and wraps the worst of the wounds, the dozens of smaller slices across his tail left uncovered; there isn’t enough bandage. At some point Edie and Jakob push into the bathroom, eyes stern and jaws set, but Erik can’t look away from Charles for too long.

“What is that creature doing here?” Jakob demands, voice quiet but not losing any of its severity. Erik’s back is stiff from sitting on the tile. He doesn’t know.

“He’s their prince,” is all he says, voice distant. Charles’ blood is caked under his nails, clumping at the roots of his hair.

Erik’s not looking but he doesn’t need to; he knows Jakob has stiffened, and that his mother has her hand to her mouth. “Get it out of the palace, before Shaw-”

The cot rattles as Charles convulses, only the whites of his eyes visible between the slits of his lids, the veins that crawl up his throat a dark blue. Erik presses down on his shoulders to steady him, his skin wet with sweat and cold as ice.

“He can’t go back,” Erik spits, glaring up at his father. Charles’ breaths are coming shallowly, little half gasps and hisses. “They did this to him.”

He’d begged for Charles’ life, bringing up diplomacy, the alliance, anything he hoped would sway the king’s mind. He’d sat with Charles through the night, tended to him during the day, patiently spoon-fed him Marie’s soups and cleaned the weeping wounds, stitching them closed with neat little seams. Sometimes Charles broke from his fever, pulling Erik close and chittering frantically in his garbled tongue, flashing images - memories - so quickly through Erik’s mind he’d hardly the chance to study them. Erik remembers poignantly the sensation of being chased, cuffed, and the cold edge of a blade slicing apart flesh.

“Just what did you do, Charles?” Erik says into the dim of the second night’s witching hours. He pulls a curled tress back from where it’s sweat-plastered to Charles’ forehead, Charles’ nose twitches as he sleeps. “Why weren’t you in the water?”

When Raven wakes him late in the morning Erik almost can’t look, can’t bring himself to listen for a heartbeat, or that familiar wheezing; but he does, and when he sees the shallow rise and fall of Charles’ chest he almost sobs.

Raven had taken the night zeppelin  to Hempe to visit the apothecary there and returned with ten gold pieces worth of remedy: a jar full of crushed greenery that tangs on his tongue and burns his nose, but Erik dutifully slathers it over the infected wounds, hoping and praying. Charles flinches and hisses and whimpers, but by the second day he’s used to it, and by evening his fever has broken.

On the third day, Erik sheds his clothes down to his breeches and pushes the cot and Charles to the edge of the bath. He steps down, and stands waist deep in the water, arms wide.

“Come on, Charles,” he tries to coax, tired but smiling, hands held up placatingly, “We need to wash you.”

His skin is still sickly pale and his eyes filmy, his body still simmering through the dregs of his fever. Charles all but rolls from the cot into the water, Erik taking the brunt of his weight and easing him down with a small grunt. He’s still holding around Charles’ back and where his thighs should start when Charles gasps and calls out in his tongue, twisting to press his chest to Erik’s, hands scrambling over his skin and nails dragging.

 _You’re safe, Charles,_ Erik pushes before Charles can get lost in his fevered panic. He holds Charles tight, and steps backwards, trusting his footing not to fall down the slight slope into the deeper part of the bath. He brings a hand to card through Charles’ hair, tries to click his own tongue soothingly, and continues to push _safe_ and _protected_ at him through their tether. Eventually, when the water swallows Erik up to his chest, and he’s holding Charles almost above the water, the mermaid’s fearful clicks and chirps settle and slow. He breathes slowly, through his nose, and gazes at Erik like he doesn’t believe he's real.

Slowly, Erik eases him down. Charles still holds tight to him, looking from Erik to the water, watching him like he’s waiting for the moment when Erik fades back into his memory, looking at him like he knows it’ll be the last time.

Erik's seen that fear in Charles’ eyes before. He presses him tight to him, the bare flats of their chests so intimately together, and he tells him, _there’s no shore to leave me on._

Three more nights concluding two days filled with soup and sleep and patient thoughts, and an evening spent lying on the metal side of the cot when he'd tried to give Charles body heat, Erik is dabbing a plush towel along the shell of Charles’ left hip when the strangest of things happens. At the time Charles had been working on his words, shaping alien vowels through an unpracticed mouth, but Erik can remember how he’d suddenly stopped, stared down at his tail and at Erik in kind, and let a steady breath.

And then the coarse scales under Erik’s palm shimmered and shifted, and the sickly grey slowly turned to pale and pink. The wounds warped and wrapped around the muscle of one thigh, and then the other, and Charles’ tail had melted away completely, transforming into two, human legs, which end shorter than the tail they replace. Charles looks almost as baffled as Erik, pushing up on his elbow to peer down at his new form. He knocks his feet together experimentally, almost with trepidation. Sparse hairs trail up his shins, dark over the sides of his thighs, leading up to where they meet.

 

 

Erik swallows, forces himself to look at the floor. From his periphery he spies Charles nudge his penis with a knuckle and a frown. His heartbeat feels like it’s in his throat.

“Did you,” Erik wets his lips, “Did you know this would happen?”  

He looks up to catch the slow, beautiful smile pulling at the corners of Charles’ red mouth, and his chest is tight all over again. “I had hoped for it.”

***

As they walk the promenade Erik can’t help but notice the way Charles looks at each woman they pass, gazing at her from her hat to her heeled boots. As much as he feels sick with himself, he can’t help but be oddly jealous.

He wants to be the subject of Charles’ apt and endless scrutiny. He wants Charles to look at him like he’s memorising even the way he moves.

Charles had been so utterly dejected by the idea of leaving Howlett’s empty handed that the tailor had grunted, grumbled at him to wait out in the foyer for a fraction of a half hour, and then brought him a flat, gold box. “Because you’re cute,” Howlett says with a wink, smirking at Erik to catch his blatant jealousy.

Charles is completely oblivious to Howlett’s flirting, enrapt in unwrapping the box. A pale pink frock is nestled inside, its bodice laced with gold thread, the shoulders puffed only slightly, and cuffed with gold. “It’ll go with your boots,” Howlett says with a nod. “Erik said he’ll help you put it on. You should sit in his lap to thank-”

“We’ll be leaving, then,” Erik interrupts, standing and clicking at Charles to draw his attention away from the dress. Erik takes the box under his arm, and doesn’t realise he’s left his other hand free and out at an angle til Charles takes it in his own.

Their fingers are still twined as they walk down to the tram platform, and for all the quizzical glances they’re garnering, Erik can’t bring himself to pull his hand free. He smiles charmingly at the women who skitter around them, watching them press in close to each other and cover their whispering mouths, their eyes chasing the crown prince and his strange friend.

Next to him Charles brings his hand up, curling his fingers over his lips, concealing a coy smile.

Charles nods to the automaton conductor when they step onto the tram. When they sit, he tries to pry the box from Erik’s grip. It smells of clean soap, like the rest of Logan’s shop had. Charles’ hand presses on Erik’s thigh and he leans across him.

“Wait til we’re home,” Erik chastises, but all he can think about is how Charles’ fingers feel splayed over the tender muscle of his inner thigh. “You’d hate to get your dress dirty.”

“We would have to take it back to Mister Howlett,” Charles concedes, leaning back, but his hand stays right where it is and Erik thinks his heart can’t beat any faster than it is right at this moment. “You don’t like him.”

Erik pulls a face. “It’s not that-” but really, how can Erik continue, and calmly say, _I don’t like how he looks at you_ or _I don’t care if he’s only teasing_ ? How could he say _I’m worried someone will notice how I look at you,_ and expect Charles not to question him?

“I’m not allowed to like Howlett, because if I like him that means he’ll see me often, and that means Raven will see _him_ often _._ The consequences of such an alliance don’t bear thinking about.”

It’s not long before Erik gets lost in thought, the gentle swaying of the tram lulling him deeper, the way the metal vibrates and calls from all around him soothing. The afternoon sun is warm on Erik’s face, and by the time the the tram wheezes, hisses, and settles nearby the palace, it’s not far from curving down into the horizon.

Charles pokes him when they stop, chirping quietly, and Erik shakes himself, stands, and cocks his head. “What were you thinking?”

“Couldn’t you check?” Erik starts down the aisle, throwing a look back over at Charles, ensuring he follows. “I was thinking about when you first started learning how to walk.”

Charles pulls a face in embarrassment, and Erik laughs.

He smiles all the way to the castle’s marble foyer, and then everything stops when he sees a man crossing from one corridor into the wide open space. In a swift motion Erik pushes Charles behind his back, squares his shoulders, and hopes that the anger and hatred burning in his eyes is a strong enough deterrent.

It isn’t. Of course it isn’t. Shaw grins, his boots squeaking over the floor as he takes a step forward. “This is a nice surprise.” Everything in Erik is tight - his stomach, his chest, his voice. He clears his throat, but the feeling doesn’t shift.  

“If only it was mutually appreciated,” he manages through his anger. He can feel Charles shifting in his mind, searching for answers, but his thoughts are laced with _something,_ something knowing, something fearful, like the instinctual self-preservation of prey in the presence of predator.

And Shaw _is_ a predator. He grins with all his teeth, and Erik pinpoints the exact moment his eyes swing from Erik to Charles behind him. Red practically flares in his vision, he bristles, and his knuckles blanch. Four knights are stippled along the perimeter of the foyer, but Erik knows from experience that Shaw is practically indestructible.

“I believe we haven’t been acquainted,” Shaw lilts, and the sound of his voice makes Erik feel sick. He can feel Charles has bunched his hand in the back of his coat. He can feel Charles’ fast, warm wet breaths painting the back of his neck. “Are you from the neighbouring kingdom?”

“It's none of your business.” The flight of stairs to the east wing aren’t far, underneath a grand archway maybe twenty paces away. If he can just edge them closer without Shaw noticing…

The admiral grins, and cocks his head. “Oh, say no more, my prince. I’ve always wondered if our little island would ever assimilate to the mainland practices of keeping bedwarmers.”

Erik prays Charles doesn’t touch Shaw’s sick mind. He steps carefully to the side, and then takes one more, Charles following him in perfect synchronisation. “What do you want, Shaw?”

Shaw ignores him, rocking back on his heels and carrying on. “So defensive, Erik. I assure you, plenty court men prefer the company of their own sex, it’s nothing to be embarrassed of, in this day and age.”

Charles is pressing in Erik’s mind but Erik ignores him, curling his arm behind his back and taking Charles’ wrist firmly, tugging him to follow as he starts for the stairs to his right. “It's funny, I thought that bathroom had been abandoned,” Shaw calls after them. Erik’s breath stops but his legs don’t. He doesn’t allow himself to even stumble in shock, only pulls Charles up to his side, and then nudges him to walk in front as he steers a bony shoulder.

He can’t tell if Charles is shaking, or if it’s only his own hand.

Shaw watches until they turn off into a corridor, and by the time they come to the grand brass elevator Erik is panting. The metal of the elevator groans lowly as Erik jerks his hand and wrenches the doors apart, and once he’s shunted Charles inside, backed him into the side wall, and clenched his fingers as the doors shut all Erik can do is stand there, letting the adrenaline run through and wreck him. Charles is silent in front of him, between his chest and the wall and close enough to share warmth, and Erik can feel his breaths fast and hitting the side of his neck.

Moments pass before Erik relaxes enough to let the lift ascend. The metal thrums around them, vibrating and hissing, and Erik chases each pulley and piston with his powers.

Charles’ hand presses against the side of Erik’s face, in front of his ear, his fingertips in his hair. Erik hadn’t even realised he’d moved. “It’s okay,” Charles tells him, fingers working a smooth pet over Erik’s face. “He doesn’t know what I am.”

The more time he spends around Charles the harder it is to drag himself away from his touches. There’s a pull between them, and Erik’s known it since he awoke on the beach with Charles at his side. He doesn’t want to deny it any longer. Charles’ palm is warm on his face, and slides easily through his hair, gripping the back of his skull. Erik shuffles forward, the dress box still under one arm, but his other hand has found itself at Charles' waist.

Taking a half-step forward leaves Erik with his knee between Charles’ thighs. “You’re protecting me, just like you said.” Their mouths are so close Erik can feel each puff of air around each word against his thin lips. Charles’ eyes flick over Erik’s face. The tip of his pink tongue swipes over the swell of his bottom lip, leaving it glossy, and Erik could just lean forward, tilt his head, taste him, he _wants_ to-

The elevator chimes and settles, and in the moment between the pulleys stilling and the doors opening Erik takes a step back, tears his eyes from Charles, and tries a steady, calming breath.

He doesn’t want to deny this thing that’s forming between them.

But the princess of Tauw is arriving tomorrow; and with no doubt, after a brief engagement, they will wed, and Erik will take the throne. He has to. Every day that passes is a day that Shaw strengthens his footholds in within the court, securing his popularity within the citizens, deluding them into a lust for violence with promises to eradicate the merfolk of Genosha’s oceans.

Once Erik is king he’ll have a surge of support, and he'll discharge Shaw. As king, he could find a truce with the merfolk, and then maybe, Charles could go home.

Charles watches him from the other side of the box, eyes wide, unsure. He looks like he’s waiting, maybe for Erik to leave, maybe for Erik to push him against the wall, melt the doors into one another just as they do. Erik wants to laugh, a crooked and bitter sound; Charles mightn't even know what kissing is.

Erik doesn’t want to deny this thing that’s forming between them, but he has to; for the sake of his kingdom, for Charles, and for what little of his heart is left uncaged.

“Come on.” Erik nods out at the corridor. His boots click on the stone. “We’ll put your dress away and have dinner brought up, then have a bath. You’ll stay in my chambers tonight.”

“To protect me?” Charles says, almost jogging to keep in step.

“Yes,” Erik says, and then thinks, _from Shaw, but not me._

When Erik looks over at Charles, the mermaid is smiling to himself, grinning at the toes of his boots. He’s holding his hands clasped in front of him, delicately, effeminately. Erik’s almost sick of the way his heart swells in his chest when he catches sight of Charles. Almost.

Erik’s memories of that morning are sunblotched and patchy, and when he looks back on them he feels like he’s seeing them through another’s eyes. But he can remember that this feeling - the yearning, the need to be in Charles’ space, breathing his air and feeling the warmth of his body - has always lingered. Erik knows that even though Charles is a man - a mermaid - the tether was something formed instantaneously in the blackened ocean water, from the moment they touched.

From the moment Charles darted from his hunting pack as they drowned Erik's men, and held Erik’s sinking body tight as he swam to the surface.

* * *

 

 


	4. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your kudos and lovely comments!! :D While I was writing this Thac and I found [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyeIXR87c4%22) and decided that it was pretty much Charles' theme for the fic, hehe

Charles didn’t know that having a human form could feel like this.

It’s not so much a consecutive series of events that play out in his mind piece by piece, scene by scene, but a blur of images and colours, of feelings - heat, tightness - all bound together by the swell in his ribs that never subsides once Erik has entered even his tame day thoughts. 

 _You’re dreaming,_ Charles tells himself, strangely aware, _Because Erik would never really do these thing to your body._

When Charles wakes with a gasp and a shudder he’s chasing the ghost sensation of rough lips on skin, of teeth biting the supple, sensitive flesh hidden between his thighs and below his navel, the hand on his…

He’s breathing so hard he’s surprised Erik hasn’t woken yet. The covers Erik had thrown over him before he turned to sleep have been kicked down, forming a wrinkled nest around his feet. The nightdress is hiked up around his thighs, and oddly tented at that specific point between them.

Distantly, Charles can hear the sounds of the boilers rattling deep within the bowels of the castle. The predawn birds sing beyond the window, their song faint in the twilight. Next to him, Erik snuffles, sighing in his sleep, and Charles feels hot in his face when he thinks of that voice moaning, panting.

Charles isn’t naive: human customs are alien to him, but he knows what the dream was. He knows what the dream meant.

His hand, from where it lays up on the pillow next to his head, begins the lazy task of travelling down his body, over each rung of his ribs, the slightly swollen muscle between the shell of each hipbone, down down down. His knuckles brush over the bump, and his breath hikes.

Next to him, Erik breathes heavily in his sleep.

Charles looks down through the dim and bites his lip. His hand teeters between sliding up his thigh and drifting to the edge of the duvet, but only for a moment, before he grinds his teeth and slips under the covers once more. 

Even though there’s space between them, Charles can feel the heat that radiates from Erik’s body. He’s so peaceful on his back, and his body calls to Charles’ senses. He wants to touch him. He wants to taste him.

The maids are starting their rounds outside in the corridors, a cat yowls in the dusk somewhere. Charles wrings his hands together, flexes his fingers and chirps in agitation before stuffing his fists up under his pillow; if he touches himself he’s not quite sure what would happen, but he knows if he touches Erik he won’t ever be able to stop.

The ache between his legs pulses, but Charles shuts his eyes and tries to chase sleep, remembering the phantom feeling of Erik’s mouth sucking and moaning around him.

But on the fringes of his mind is another voice calling to him, familiar in the most peculiar of ways.

*

When Charles wakes a second time, he simply lies there curled in on his side, and for a calm moment he doesn’t even remember his own name.

Until Erik huffs from behind him, and everything Charles made Erik do to him in his mind last night comes tumbling back.

“Good morning, _Sleeping Beauty_ ,” Erik chuckles, and when Charles rolls over to look at him he’s shrugging into his military blazer. The formal one, for the best of occasions, Charles remembers. His breeches are unbuttoned. Charles licks his lips and forces himself to meet Erik’s eyes. 

“ _Sleeping Beauty_?” he wonders, pushing himself up. The tightness is gone from his belly, but that doesn’t stop Charles from catching his bottom lip between his teeth and flushing. The dream is still fresh on the fringes of his mind.

Erik hums, turning to inspect himself in the mirror, “A tale for children, of a princess who is cursed to sleep for one hundred years.”

“But I am not a princess.” He catches Erik’s reflection pulling a stony expression, but it vanishes as quickly as it appeared. Resignation, a kind of begrudging acknowledgement is what Charles feels in his mind. That, he cannot hide.

“But you _have_ slept past breakfast.” Charles wrinkles his nose and glances around. There’s a tray on the side desk, next to the fat-looking book Erik had been reading last night before he slept, and Charles can smell the tang of orange juice, which is now with no doubt turned tepid. He pushes himself up to sit and reaches for the tray. Thick slices of soft bread have been slathered with something purple and sweet-smelling ( _Jam,_ Erik had told him when he’d grown strong enough to feed himself), and there’s a pot of sliced fruit that’s browned a little in patches from the air. _Apple,_ Charles thinks, and the small ones of purple and red are grapes. Cheese is the soft yellow cream on the saucer next to them, crusted with white. Erik watches him fondly as he acknowledges each dish.

“What are we doing today?” asks Charles between a mouthful of bread and a sip of the juice. He’s not sure he favours oranges, their sour tang so strong to his unfamiliar tongue, but he’s not sure he has the heart to tell Marie. 

Erik turns to him and seems to take a deeper breath than normal. “I can’t be with you today,” he says, and the food in Charles’ mouth turns bland. “The Princess of Tauw and her entourage arrived early this morning. I’m to tour her throughout the palace.” 

“Oh,” Charles manages. If he focuses on the tray maybe Erik won’t notice how dejected he feels; no such luck, for Erik sighs and settles next to him on the bed. He’s close enough for their knees to bump. 

Yesterday, Erik hadn’t even let him bathe alone, pulling a chair into the bathroom and sitting and reading that same heavy book as Charles swum. “Shaw knows we come here,” he’d said gravely, “But I promise I won’t let him find you.” His hand had passed over the lock, and the doorknob - the size of Charles’ closed fist - had melted back onto the wood.

At night, Erik had dumped a heaping of pillows and blankets on the chaise. “You may sleep in my bed,” he’d said, nodding at the grand, four-poster bed with a stiffness that comes from military discipline, with self-denial and years of conditioning. “Shaw is already too aware of you; if he discovered the location of your chambers…” 

Charles had nodded, standing in the silk and cotton nightdress, toes stretching over the plush rug under him. “I understand. You’re protecting me.” Here, Erik had seemed to flinch, and Charles had tilted his head but he hadn’t made sense of it. So he carried on, and tried to ignore the twisting in his belly and the flush up his neck, “But the bed is big. We can both sleep there.”

Laying next to Erik properly, in his bed, not in a bloody cot; Charles bit his lip, and Erik had seemed lost for words. His thoughts turned into that quick storm of different things, words and feelings Charles couldn’t catch, and so he’d pressed on, insistant, stepping up across the carpet to where Erik stood at the chaise. He’d cocked his head, widened his eyes, and touched a hand to Erik’s arm. “Please sleep with me, Erik.”

It must have been the nightdress, Charles thinks now, glancing up at Erik from the corner of his eyes.

“Is she pretty?” Charles tries to ask nonchalantly, but he’s sure some hint of jealousy twists through. He was never very good at hiding his emotions.

The corner of Erik’s lip twitches, but only once. “So I’ve heard. This will be my first time meeting her.”

“And my dresses from Mr Logan?” Charles hopes he doesn’t sound as irritated as he feels. If he just had them, maybe Erik would... 

“I’ll have Raven go down to collect them,” Erik says apologetically, touching his knee briefly. His fingers are warm. The touch burns its way across his skin in fireworks and fizzles. “She wasn’t expected to arrive til this evening.” 

Charles has to force himself to finish his breakfast, for Marie’s sake. He woke so peacefully, and now… now he’s grinding his teeth so tight he’s sure they’ll crack.

He isn’t stupid. He knows what a princess is to a prince.

After all, he’s one himself.

Erik notices the shift in Charles’ demeanour. “You have that pretty pink dress for today, if you can’t wait,” Erik tries to soothe. “I’m very sorry, Charles. I’ll slip away if I’m able, but…”

Charles understands. It would be unbecoming to abandon his future wife in their future castle, especially for… for _Charles_. Inconsequential, unimportant Charles. He sighs, and tries to calm himself. “It is okay. I can wait. I have my books.”

Books he can't read; not without Erik.

Erik nods and stands, patting Charles’ bared shoulder. His hand hardly makes contact at all; Charles tries to quell the cold bitter heartbreak holing out his chest. “If anyone comes to the door, do not open it. It’s too risky with Shaw sniffing about.”

There’s something definitely very wrong about the admiral, Charles decides. The black inkiness of his mind is near impenetrable, his smiles always with all his teeth and never any warmth. Perhaps there’s no warmth in him at all. “I won’t.”

The pink dress is still in its tissue paper-lined box, which Erik had settled on the stool of his dressing table. Once he leaves, with a soft click of the lock and not a second look, Charles stands and pads to the partition, purposefully looking away from the mangled skin of his legs.

 _Maybe that’s why,_ a small, insecure part of him whispers insidiously, _Maybe that’s why Erik doesn’t love you._

The soft paper crinkles and scratches when Charles pulls it aside, revealing the frock. It’s not as detailed as the white dress, but still pretty in its plain and humble shade of petal pink. Charles looks at it with a new sort of keen determination. 

Erik is _his_ soulmate, of that Charles is certain. He just needs to make Erik realise it.

He slips from the nightdress easily enough, and stands in front of his reflection for a time, twisting his head and craning his neck to see his body from all angles. The smaller of the scars are only visible when the light catches, mere shimmers of white across his pale skin. The thicker gashes, across the tops of his thighs and curling over to the muscled sides, are tougher to meet with plain eye, and harder to ignore.

He wonders what the princess must look like, how the bow of her lips might curve in a smile, if her voice is clear and light like the echo of glass when she laughs. He’s sure she must have swollen hips and a full chest, for what else might a human use to lure a mate? Charles glares at all the flat lines of his own body. The only place he’s soft at is the area below his navel, and he’s sure that’s only Marie’s doing. 

She must be very smart, Charles thinks, educated in all manners of human customs. Unlike him, he adds sourly. He’s wickedly clever, his age and his upbringing turning him wiser than many he’s met; but humans are so very different, so complicated, and ever since the alliance broke and the _Q’ian_ supposedly slaughtered, there’d been nothing taught of them by his tutors. He’s sure he must seem like a child in Erik’s eyes. No wonder he keeps his distance.

As Charles unlaces the bodice and dives into the skirts of the frock, he wonders if Erik is touching her the way he won’t touch him.

At the bottom of the box lies a set of white stockings that shimmer and gleam, as well as a pair of long, pink gloves and a thin line of silk beneath. _A scarf,_ Charles remembers. The dress is a perfect fit, tight at his waist and giving around his shoulders, tapering down his torso and providing the illusion of a fuller pair of hips with the plumage of layered skirts. The skirt billows around him, a petticoat of silk and lace to support it, and for all his anxious, insecure thoughts, Charles can’t help but smile as he twists his hips and watches the material chase his momentum.

 

The stockings slide over his feet, up the muscles of his legs, and obscure any hint of red marring. They roll up almost the entire length of his thighs, snapping securely with a ring of lace so close to his underwear it almost drives him to blush when he thinks too much about it. And then he thinks about Erik on his knees in front of him, pushing his skirts away, and pulling at the lace with his teeth, and he does. 

The boots Erik bought him are fickle, but once he has them on and tightened he can’t help but chirp softly as he looks at his reflection. Mr Howlett was right - the dress does accompany them well, in an interesting way.

There’s just something oddly off about his appearance, and Charles can’t figure what. His hair is a tangle of curls that fall perfectly into place, and while he’s yet to meet one he’s sure there are women with shorter hair than him. The dress forms a feminine figure, but perhaps it’s his arms - which are very toned and thick - or his broad hands and chunky fingers - topped with bitten down nails - or the way the dress lies flat against his chest that throws everything off kilter. The neckline only offers collar, nothing further, but it isn’t hard to notice the distinct plains of his chest. 

But it isn’t that, Charles thinks, clicking in frustration and staring himself in the face. He brings a hand to his eyes, circles the dark skin below them, traces down his thick, curved nose and along the sharp peaks of his upper lip, the fat swell of his bottom one--

 _There,_ he thinks, startled, his fingers stuck on his chin. His skin is prickly, _abrasive,_ and Charles is almost so horrified he wants to run down to Erik and demand to know what’s wrong with him, princess be damned, but then he runs his hand up along his jaw instead and realises with a strange, mortified curiosity, that the scratchiness is produced by _hair._

 _Hair._ He has _hair_ on his face.

Charles turns his cheek one way, and then another, tipping his head back to look at the underside of his chin, dipping his nose forward and groaning at the way the hairs shadow over his skin. He’s seen humans at the fisheries sporting birds' nests of hair tumbling from their chins, and Mr Howlett, too, with so much fur he’s almost like a wolf. Mr McCoy has hair but that’s… different. He must be soft everywhere, Charles thinks. It’d be like hugging a blanket. He’s a little envious of Raven for a moment. 

But the humans with this kind of hair... they're all men, Charles realises with a hard swallow and pang in his chest. And Erik... Erik doesn't love men. 

Charles decides instantaneously that he very much does not at all like having hundreds of tiny hairs all over his face.

He whines and scrubs at his cheeks, hoping that maybe it’ll go away if he tries hard enough, but all it does is give him nasty red patches between his knuckles. Charles kneels on the dresser to look closer in the mirror, the flats of his palms against the glass. Small black dots stipple his skin, and together they shade his cheeks a light ginger hue.  

 _Maybe women have it, too,_ some hopeful part of him thinks forlornly. _Maybe Erik won’t mind._

He glares at his reflection, cupping his face with his hands, hiding the stubble, but he knows it isn’t a permanent solution. Charles bites his bottom lip til it's red and glossy. 

This undermines everything he's been trying. Charles rubs the sandiness on his cheeks, and whines a little more. Even with all those beautiful dresses that Mr Logan's making for him, that Raven's getting for him today, none of them would help if the telltale signs of his masculinity are right there on his face-

Oh, _Raven-- Raven_  might know what to do about the hair. There must be a way to tame it, for Erik’s has never grown past what Charles wears now. She might be able to help him.

Charles shimmies back off the dresser, landing with a clip of his heels on the stone and a quiet noise. The gloves are smooth and silky over his skin, climbing up his arms to his elbows, and when Charles pats his cheeks again they buffer the scratch of his stubble.

Maybe if he walked covering his mouth, fingers curled daintily, like he’s seen the courtiers do when they smile or chuckle, or maybe, if he touches his cheeks and frowns like he’s lost, or in shock-

A single hair pokes through the threads of his glove when he does so, and Charles stares wide eyed in horror at his equally as horrified reflection. He feels another hair pop through, tickling the pad of his index finger, and then he reels and pulls his hands down to glare that them.

He has to find Raven. She’s getting his dresses from Mr Howlett, but she won’t be long.

Charles grapples for the scarf in the box and loops it around his throat, obscuring the strange lump there. He’s sure Erik has one too. When he touches it experimentally he’s shocked and disgusted to find even _more_ hair there. He wraps the scarf around twice for good measure.

He hesitates at the door, staring at the brass handle for a moment and biting his bottom lip. If Shaw finds him… he mightn’t even recognise him. Dressed like this, the admiral wouldn’t know.

The handle releases the latch and rolls the tumblers, and the door pulls inwards. The visible crack of stone and rug of the corridor steadily grows thicker, until Charles has the door open and he’s standing in the archway, peering down the hall until it falls into a flight of stairs. One knight is stationed a little way up from the door, rose-gold armour shielding his face, so Charles can’t tell if he’s been spotted. 

Surely Erik won’t be too mad if he leaves. Besides, it won’t be for long; Raven can’t be far.

The decision to take the step is made for him when the door shuts with a draft and knocks against his backside, pushing him out with a stumble. The knight doesn’t move. Charles takes one tentative step, and then another, and then he grins. While he doesn’t remember which corridors to take and which stairs to climb, he does know all Raven’s favourite spots that she’d shown him two days ago - the courtyard, the balcony, the atrium with the pretty courtiers. It can’t be too hard to find her.

So three steps along, Charles tightens the scarf and pulls up his gloves, and hurries on down the corridor. 

*

 _I’m lost,_ Charles realises, coming out from the stairs and standing in the landing of the fourth floor of the southern wing of the castle. _I’m irrevocably, absolutely lost._

He’s _sure_ he’s seem the same cluster of cracks in that slab of stone before, the one beneath the portrait of some dusty old human Charles assumes is long dead now. He _knows_ this brown and green rug, it yields beneath the heels of his boots so nicely, especially when he rocks back on them to test.

He steps over to the window, criss-crossed with nets of iron fixed externally, and peers through one diamond of lattice. A straight drop down to the ocean which spreads out into the horizon, and the craggly, broken edges of the cliff the castle sits on are all that are visible. Charles huffs and looks the corridor up and down; he’s _really_ lost.

Surely he can catch the thoughts of someone walking by, trace them like a lead and figure out where he is. The castle _can’t_ be that big, if Erik is touring a princess around it…

Charles remembers Erik, and the princess. The scarf around his throat feels much too tight. 

As Charles reroutes and tries another flight of stairs down, he clears his mind of Erik, of the way he might have his hand on the princess’ back, of the way he might smile at her. Something soft and small, maybe if she says something funny, something that impresses him; a secret little smile like the ones he gives Charles.

Charles imagines the bannister cracking in his grip. He’s never felt jealousy like this before; granted, in all his years, he’s never really had anyone to be jealous over.

That’s something else Charles doesn’t really want to think on too much, especially not now. Marko and his mother are a world away, that palace of ghosts and shadows so deep below the surface it’s out of the sun’s reach. He’s safe here, with the bright sky warming his face and turning him gold; Erik made sure he’d be safe here.

But when he looks out at the stretch of sea he can’t help but remember the sting of the whips coiling around his tail, the way his flesh split around the edges of Marko’s sword. His mother’s shrill banishment rings in his ears. _You want to mate with a human, you can die for one._  

Back then as he’d pulled himself ashore and wedged between the rocks, almost two weeks ago, he’d thought that it would be worth it, that any kind of pain would be worth suffering for Erik. And if it wasn’t... If it wasn't he’d rather die than live another day lonely, surrounded by people who couldn’t stand to see him. 

Charles wrings his gloved hands. Had being banished been worth it? Did he prefer living an empty life of solitude as opposed to one where he lived each day rejected again and again, shunned by the one person in all the lands and seas and skies who had been made for him, and him alone?

 

Could he share Erik with some girl, a girl who probably did not love him, but was made to love him? Could he lie in his barren chambers across the hall and spend night after frozen night lying awake trying to ignore the brightness of Erik’s mind as he gazes at his wife? And what if she grew Erik’s child, like surely she would have to? And while all mermaids can bear young, gender and sex being much more fluid and less defined in their species, Charles knows that human reproductive biology is strictly dimorphic in this regard, and in this form, in this human form, would Charles even be able to _give_ Erik a child...?

Charles doesn’t realise he’s crying until his eyes are burning and his cheeks are wet, and he scrubs at the hot tears trying to clear them away. Distantly, he can hear voices, close by and familiar… a man and a woman, just around the corner from where he stands. He can’t discern their words, but the woman says something, and the man chuckles lowly.

Charles freezes. He knows that voice. His stomach twists in knots, anxious, dreading. His boots make no sound over the carpet, but even if they did Charles is unsure if he’d hear it over the pounding of his heart, and the _pleading_ running through his mind… He steps carefully to meet the corner, tucking himself behind it. _You have to look,_ he tells himself, and he knows it has to. But he knows what he’ll see once he does.

_Please be wrong, please be wrong..._

Even knowing doesn’t prepare him for the shock that hits him like glass and turns his blood to ice. From where he’s coiled around the corner all Charles can see are their backs, but he’s not sure he could handle even glimpsing the pair. Erik's voice only ever sounds that soft when he smiles. 

 

 

The way she’s pressed against his arm, her hand holding him at the crook, the flare of her tunic brushing against his thigh in their proximity… Charles pulls back and slams against the wall, trying not to let the stinging of his nose and eyes overcome him. Erik’s only showing her around, he’s escorting her as any prince would, Charles _knows_ this… but her pretty blonde hair curls down to between her shoulder blades, longer and glossier than his, and where Charles relies on the voluptuousness of his skirts the princess naturally has wider hips, a smaller waist, that she accentuates with a belt and tight clothes. Charles pats his chest forlornly, staring out across the hallway at a window, listening to their faint footsteps and drifting chatter. 

Her mind had been clear and clean, as clever as she is beautiful. Charles still struggles to speak aloud.

Of course Erik would chose her, even if he didn’t have to. She’s destined to be Erik’s mate. 

Before he realises it, Charles is pushing off from the wall, and running down the corridor, his footfalls drowning out the sounds of their laughter. With eyes burning he can hardly see where he’s going, but he’s not even sure he cares.

He runs until the breath burns in his lungs and his muscles ache, his body so unused to coordinating legs. He gave up his tail for Erik, gave up all he’d ever known, and while he’d do it again… he’d do it a thousand times, but for Erik to... it still… 

The tears are falling before he can stop them, streaking down the skirt of his dress. Charles dabs at his eyes with the flats of his palms, smearing the salty tears away, sniffling into his hands. He’s alone, completely alone, Erik gone, Raven illusive, and apparently everyone in the castle wants to hurt him…

 _You’re not alone,_ says something, a ghost, a phantom, and when he feels the words drift into his mind his spine goes rigid and his skin prickles all the way up his arms to his neck. Charles look up, eyes wide, body still, listening for more. 

But it doesn’t come, and all that the voice leaves is a vague impression of familiarity, of nostalgia, and flashes of opalescent water and trails of bubbles.

It’s then that Charles realises he really doesn’t at all know where he’s wandered now, but it’s oddly familiar, albeit slightly blurred when he glances around. The gloves are damp in patches, but he pays them little mind as he sniffles and tries to orientate himself.

Down the flight of stairs behind him is a large landing, with green tapestries draped on the walls depicting creatures of the land. Ahead of him is a long corridor that stretches to square around the perimeter of a small garden, which features a four-tired running fountain. Charles swallows. The water is cloudy, spilling down down down, and pooling in the wide base nestled on the grass and skirted by flowers.

Several doors stipple the left wall and a twinge tightens in his chest when he notices that only one is open, ajar slightly, some human song spilling out into the corridor. It sounds warped, mechanic, like the gramophone’s needle is bent or the grooves are melted. Suddenly Charles knows exactly where he is; exactly where Erik never wanted him to come.

He can feel the black, swirling inkiness of the admiral’s mind, so close by Charles feels sick. It’s echo is as twisted as the music. It bleeds into him. Some part of Charles registers that his hands are shaking, gloved fingers curling into the skirt of his dress and tugging at it insistently, willing himself to move, but Erik had been so adamant that he not come here, never come here;  _Erik_ had been shaking, holding him so tight Charles was sure his bones would snap--

Will Erik be furious, when he finds out? Will Erik banish him, too? Maybe he’ll break Charles’ legs, tie him down so he can’t move and step on him at the knee, waiting for that crack, that shriek, and he’ll grin down at him as he writhes in agony. He’d make sure Charles never disobeyed him again, never went anywhere again--

The door creaks open slightly, and Charles’ frantic eyes glimpse a shiny flat slither of thick glass in the copper-tinted room. Something moves in the opaque water beyond the glass; shimmering and shifting as it pulls from sight..

A shadow passes over the glass. When a leather-gloved hand curls around the lip of the door, inching it open, Charles’ mind comes back to him and his stiff, frozen legs shake as he turns and runs. His boots echo on the stone. The hem of his skirt drags over the stairs as he hurries down them, down to the marble foyer, and even though he stumbles twice he doesn’t he doesn’t stop; not even to glance over his shoulder. 

He doesn’t need to. He can feel Shaw’s eyes on him, burning into his back.

Humans were not designed to flee, Charles decides as he runs, catching the startled attention of the guards and several servants, but he can’t care for how he must look when he can feel Shaw’s mind chasing him and his legs are beginning to tremble with exertion. He’s panting hard, ragged breaths drying his throat and lips, and it feels like his lungs are on fire. Humans were _definitely_ not made to escape. _No wonder they’re so stubborn._  

But he doesn’t stop. Rounding a corner, skipping the bottom step in a flight and kicking off the stone to sprint down a corridor, stumbling over a thick wrinkle in the rug; even though his muscles are quivering and tight, and there’s a sudden tearing pain blooming just below his ribs on his left side, Charles doesn’t stop. He can still see Erik grinning down at him in a twisted smile, in one hand he holds a blade, and in the other Charles’ translucent fins. Suddenly, Charles is overwhelmed by the sensation of _being trapped,_ immobilised, and now he loses his breath for an entirely different reason. 

Charles shuts his eyes, shakes his head, and pants and runs and ignores the way every part of him is screaming, his mind and his muscles--

The toe of his right boot catches on the puckered hem of a rug, and only a gasp and a startled, disbelieving cry of “ _Charles_?!” cuts through his panic. Charles is weightless for one second, and he opens his eyes, only to see someone very familiar and very blue staring at him in shock, right in front of him.

He crashes into Raven shoulder first and they go down in a tangle of limbs to a symphony of groans and curses. He’s got a chunk of Raven’s bright orange hair drying his mouth, and it sticks to his tongue in clumps and strands. “Charles?” she repeats, less of a cry and more of a question, and she cocks her head to the side from where she’s under him to look at him. “What are you doing?”

From his vantage point Charles can see the curve and fray of each dark scale stippling her smooth, _hairless_ cheeks and lining her strong jaw. He can see each thread of gold running in her narrowed eyes. “I was…” He promised Erik he’d never go to that part of the castle. “Finding you.” It isn’t a complete lie. Raven huffs.

“Well, you found me,” she grumbles, followed by a dry laugh, and from under him she nudges him with her knee. “Come on, up.”

He pushes off her and sits on his haunches, watches as she sits and stretches and stands, before he does. She’s not in her armor (for which Charles is endlessly grateful), or even her knights robes, but a long skirt and a white button up. He watches her as she looks him over slowly, head to toe, and tries to quash the anxious feeling wriggling in his belly. Charles knows he can trust Raven, because Erik trusts Raven, and Erik said he’d keep him safe; but that doesn’t stop her from scrutinising him, from thinking strange judgements about his even stranger choice of clothing. Finally, she snorts, and shakes her head, but Charles doesn’t peek; he knows she doesn’t like his powers.

“Maybe I should be jealous you look better in a dress than I do,” she snarks, and Charles is a little confused but Raven is smiling, so it must be positive. “I just dropped off the others at your room. I was looking for you, too.”

A flare of excitement sparks in his belly, and he rocks on his heels. A chirp sneaks from the corner of his mouth, and Raven’s smile softens. “Oh, thank you,” he starts, “But I am staying in Erik’s room now.”

“Oh,” says Raven, eyes popping and mouth a small circle. Now she’s smirking, Charles is sure that’s how the humans call it. But he doesn’t understand why. He feels like he might have said the wrong thing, his skin prickly and hot.

And _then_ he remembers the reason for trying to find her in the first place. Charles brings his hands to his shadowed cheeks and frowns.

“I have hairs on my face,” he blurts. Raven’s expression clears into confusion, and she tilts her head to the side.

“Hairs?”

Charles nods. “On here.” He pats his fleshy cheeks, the silk gloves dragging on the short, scratchy stubble.

“A lot of people do, Charles,” she tells him. “It’s very common, and pretty normal.” She jerks her head down the corridor, and he steps hastily in time with her as they walk.

“Erik doesn’t have it.” He should know, he spends so much time looking at Erik and memorising even his faint sun-kisses. If Erik doesn’t have a have a hairy face it must be because he doesn’t like how it feels, and how is Charles ever supposed to get Erik to touch him - or, Charles thinks to a blush running down his throat, _kiss_ him - if he has some feature that Erik doesn’t favour.

He’s already let Erik down once in that regard; but he’s changing. He’ll change for Erik. Anything for Erik.

“Surely mermaids have beards,” Raven scoffs, leading Charles to the elevator station. These ones have automatonic conductors, like the trams, and while he’d never admit it because Erik seems to like them, he’s always found the robots a little strange. “You lot are part human, after all.”

Charles hums. “I feel like we are a lot different than humans think.”

Raven shrugs, and the lift purrs and rattles as it ascends. The only automaton only emits a harsh click at intervals, silent behind them. “Different enough to not have beards,” she concedes. “Erik will have to teach you how to get rid of your stubble, if you’re so loathe to it. But it’ll grow back.”

Charles spies his reflection in the shiny gold-plating of the interior of the elevator, a little world of brass and copper, and he frowns, leans forwards on his toes and rubs his fingers over his jaw. “Can I hide it?” 

He hears her make a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a snort, but when he glances over his bared shoulder she’s only watching him fondly. “You can shave it. Erik will have to help you out there, though, but for now I suppose we can try something else…”

He looks back at her when she trails off. Raven’s staring at air, eyes distant, and then a small smile twitches to life on her lips. When her eyes fix and settle back on him, the smile has grown into a grin, and her eyes glimmer with excitement. “I know what we can try.”

*

“I use this room for the nights either Darwin or Alex relieve me and I’m too lazy to walk all the way to the dormitories,” Raven explains, unlocking the bedroom adjacent to Erik’s that Charles had taken refuge in. It smells musky, reminiscent of McCoy’s bookstore. Nothing like Erik’s chambers. Charles is surprised that he can distinguish the scent so soon. “Some of my belongings are hidden around. I know you’ve taken a liking to my nightdress, don’t even try to deny it.”

She smirks, and Charles is sure she’s joking with him, but Raven can be so taciturn and without the support of her mind Charles is often left stumped by her quips. “It’s lovely,” he tries, following her as she walks into the main bed chamber. A pile of boxes from Logan’s shop have been stacked on the mattress, and whatever worry twisting in Charles is eclipsed by a rush of excitement.

“It’s yours; I can’t remember the last time I wore it.” When Charles doesn’t respond Raven throws a glance over her shoulder. He can feel her smirking at him, but when he pulls his eyes from the dresses to Raven’s face he must miss it. Silently, Charles walks to the bed. The boxes are so much larger this close, and he eyes them with glee. “You really like dresses,” Raven whistles, coming up next to him. “Why?” 

“They’re pretty,” Charles decides, tentatively lifting the card lid - easily fighting the little suction of air - and working on the crinkling tissue paper. And he likes the way they feel, the way his skirt wafts around his legs reminding him of the buffet of water around his tail as he swims.

 _As he swam,_ Charles mentally corrects. Erik’s given him the bathroom, but it’s neck-deep and hardly an ocean. A quick afternoon at the beach to stretch his muscles isn’t worth his life. Charles knows Marko would go straight for his throat this time.

Charles shakes his head to clear his mind, and he knows Raven caught the gesture so he tries not to puff his cheeks and instead, continues. “And Erik likes me in a dress.”

Raven makes a strange noise, like she’d tried to clear her throat but somehow managed the opposite. He frowns, his cheeks hot. Maybe he’d said the wrong thing again. “Erik… likes you in a dress?”

“It makes me look like a woman,” Charles explains. “And Erik would love me if I was a woman.”

He can feel her mind churning through thoughts trying to piece his logic together, he can see her frown. It’d be so easy to just skim her mind and figure out what he’s doing wrong, what the flaw is, but… Raven’s his friend. His telepathy is such an intrinsic part of him, as normal as his voice, and as much as it hurts that she doesn’t accept him for it, as much as he doesn’t understand... He promised not to read her. He’s not sure he could betray her like that.

“Charles,” she starts slowly, contemplative, taking one step forward, reaching to him before deciding against the motion and letting her hand press on her hip to keep it still. “Charles, Erik doesn’t… he doesn’t love…”

She fixes her eyes on him. She must see the confusion wrinkling his brow, for she sighs, forces and smile, and quiets. Curiosity is a niggle in Charles’ mind, and he hadn’t realised his heart was beating so fast until now. What doesn’t Erik love? It’d be so easy to just pick up the words she won’t say, but Charles could never do it. 

“Come on,” she says instead. “Show me what you got from Logan.” 

A cloud scented by lavender rises to meet them when Charles pulls the soft tissue paper away, and revealed within is the white dress with the purple hemming. Raven makes an excited little noise and carefully lifts it from where it’s nestled, holding it out in front of her. “Mermaids have good taste.”

“Oh, no, because we eat corals, we actually do not taste much at all.” Charles thumbs the silk ribbons hemming the cotton, smiling to himself. At the bottom of the box, under another layer of tissue paper, are a set of gloves with lacy edging and a pair of white stockings, a petticoat, and what Charles assumes to be underwear. Some sort of small article comprised of straps, clips, and lace is tucked at the side. He’s sure Erik will help him figure out how to wear it.

Another box holds the shimmering evening gown with grey stockings, in another a hat, and within a smaller one a pair of white slippers donned with purple ribbons. Charles bites his lip when he eyes the heels, which are maybe the length of his pointer finger, and wonders how it’ll be to walk in them. But they seem the size of his human feet, and Charles is a little impressed by Mr Howlett’s skill. In another box is a pretty marigold dress accompanied by matching gloves and heels, similar to the frock he wears now. A tailored nightdress that makes up for its dull appearance in spades with the quality of the material, two sets of stockings and a pair of small, flat heeled blush-pink slippers, and in the last box…

Charles stares at the garment where it lies, and he bites his bottom lip. It’s not a dress, but it looks like the start of one, the middle. A dozen or more lines connect the top to the bottom, though Charles really isn’t at all sure which is what. It’s white, of silk and lace like most of what Mr Howlett has made for him, and the dashes down and around it are hard with hidden metal. 

“Oh,” Raven breathes next to him, reaching out to stroke it. “Do you know what this is?”

Charles cocks his head and inspects it. The inside is velvety, and along the back run a series of eyelets and white ribbon threaded through them. “It’s a corset,” Raven continues to explain, plucking it from him and analysing it with a practised eye. “I hate them. But this one must have cost Erik a fortune.”

She reminds him that Erik is funding all this. Even if he’s the prince, he must be using his own personal coin, for he couldn’t dip into the treasury at his status and certainly not for this. It fills Charles with a strange feeling. Almost bashful, Charles thinks, but also… important. Special. Erik must truly favour him to spend so much money buying him dresses, books, and whatever else his heart should covet. “What do you do with a corset?” 

Raven clicks her tongue - in a way a human would, not like mermaids, not how Erik does for him - and eyes him up and down, fixing on his waist. “You mightn’t like it, but trust me, you’ll look _amazing._ ”

 _Isn’t that the goal_ , Charles thinks dryly. He squares his shoulders, takes a breath, and nods.

And then Raven pulls the dress off him, and he wonders _just what it is_ that he’s doing. 

*

It doesn’t take long before Charles decides with the strongest of adamance and the lightest of chests that he does not like corsets one bit.

Raven’s still _somehow_ pulling the laces tighter, and with each heave Charles can feel a tiny bit more of his soul leaving his body. _Via his throat, courtesy of his compressed lungs._ “Trust me,” he thinks she’s saying, but the lack of air is making him dizzy and her voice seem far, far away. “You’re gonna look _so good_ after this.”

It’s really nothing compared to hot lashes tearing through the delicate, thin flesh of his fins, a small part of his mind reminds him. It really could be worse.

But when she’s done lacing the damned thing Charles can hardly stand straight, and when he does manage to erect himself he can feel the air leaving him with a weak croak. If he was in his true form, he wouldn’t even have to breathe.

It’s a slow and painful waddle to turn himself to face the mirror, but when he does Charles understands what Raven had meant. It _is_ worth it. His waist has been cinched tight, curving perfectly and giving him hips he could nurse children on. The corset even manages to push the muscles of his chest in tight, giving him the illusion of cleavage, of _breasts,_ and Charles grins at his reflection, turning slightly.

Maybe he should be embarrassed to be standing in front of Raven in only the corset and his underwear, but really, she’s seen him looking worse, and between being breathless and giddy (which, maybe, in hindsight isn’t such a coincidental combination) Charles can hardly care. He can feel the metal digging into his flesh, but he tries to think about how Erik’s eyes will widen when he sees him, how his palms will grow hot and his gaunt cheeks pink. He wonders if Erik will be able to feel each band of metal shaping his waist, pulling it in, if he’ll be able to feel it pressing against his warm-blooded skin. Charles glances at his underwear once more, and wills his thoughts to tame.

Raven’s saying something to him. “This is called a garter,” she’s explaining, but Charles feels so light headed he can’t really be sure. “It connects all the parts together, like-- this!” She clips the strappy article to his stockings after she secures it around his waist.

It’s tight, but not as tight as the corset, and it adds a degree of _something_ to the ensemble that makes Charles’ tummy flutter. He looks mature. He looks like a real human woman. The intricate way it all connects reminds him of the silver necklaces he used to own, the ones he wore for Erik. Maybe this is what seduces humans. He just hopes it’s worth the pain.

“Come on,” he thinks Raven says as she wraps him in a thin robe. “I can’t shave you, but we can see if this will work.”

She steers him to sit in front of the dressing table, on a plush little seat covered with velvet. Charles wishes he could hear what she was saying properly, for all he catches are words like _typically for women_ and _practise_ spoken as she pins his hair into curls and off his face. An array of pots and jars line the dressing table, all faintly perfumed by soap, and he watches as Raven starts to open them and dab thin-haired brushes down into their contents. 

 _Makeup,_ he hears her say. _Some women wear it to change how they look._ She’s bent forward at the hip and rubbing the brush along the crooked line of his nose, following the angles of his jaw and blending it in circles over his cheeks. He looks over her shoulder in the mirror and watches as the pale cream smothers the dark hairs on his chin. “Of course, I can just change myself into makeup, but it’s therapeutic, applying it.”

The hairs tickle his nose and he almost sneezes, but the corset creaks warningly and he tries to sit still, limits his breathing and clears his mind. Charles doesn’t know how long he sits for, eyes flicking from Raven’s concentrated expression to the reflection where he can see her transforming him. “Sit still for me, won’t you?” she asks, leaning in with a brush dipped in black ink. She brings it cautiously to his eyelid, and it takes all his will not to fidget or flinch.

 

He can count every scale on her face with how close she is, see all the little shimmers of blacks and blues that blend together to create her skin. She smells clean, not like perfume but still sweet. Raven hums when she pulls away, satisfied with her work. “Well then, take a look!"

The person in the reflection isn’t him; it _can’t_ be. Her lips are soft and red, redder than his own should be, her skin pale but not sickly, with the tops of her cheeks a soft brush of pink. Charles can’t see any trace of ruddy stubble. The blue of her eyes is brighter than the sky thanks to the black lines along the edges of her eyelids, that lift into two symmetrical points at the corners.

 

“Pretty as a princess,” Raven compliments, turning to pack away the jars. “We’ve solved your beard problem for now.”

Charles feels like he might be sick.

He can’t sit and brood about any _real_ princesses marrying  _his prince_ for long though. “Put your dress back on,” Raven tells him, throwing him the frock from where she cast it over the changing partition. “Your waist will be so much slimmer now.” 

Knotting the scarf, donning his gloves; his movements are jilted and tight, and it takes him a lot to pull the dress down over the corset, mindful of the freshness of his face. He almost feels like he should say something, tell Raven that the corset doesn’t feel right… but Raven is a woman herself. She must know how to properly lace and wear fashion for human women. She’s like a mentor in all this. It’d be rude to go against her.

He sits on the bed to pull on the flat-soled ankle boots, not wanting to be far from the ground with this kind of nausea. This morning’s breakfast feels like it’s disagreeing with him, but he quashes everything he’s feeling down and thinks of Erik. In this corset he must be prettier than that princess; he _has_ to be. And Erik- Erik will look at him, and he’ll want him instead. 

Charles remembers the way Erik had looked at him in his dream last night, eyes piercing and steely, his hand coming to Charles’ waist and then sweeping over a protruding hip bone, fingers brushing his thighs where his fins would sit. 

Like Raven’s the telepathic one she glances at him pointedly, and he silences his thoughts, shrouding them with neutrality, hoping she won’t notice neither his discomfort nor his blush.

Distant clattering; a draw closing, boots against stone. “Let’s go find Erik. He should be done with his silly princess by now.”

Standing makes everything worse, his ribs twinging and the muscles around them cramping painfully, and Charles sucks in a breath before he can help it. He’s not sure how he manages making it to the door, and additionally further out into the corridor, his arm against Raven’s crook, but soon enough they’re coming to the elevator and the way it drops and lurches makes him sway. He must slur, “ _Where’s Erik, I need Erik,”_ for that's certainly what he's thinking, because now Raven’s prattling on about all the different spots he could be hiding away in, how it’ll take a while to find him, and that only makes the aching so much worse, if for a different reason.

He needs Erik. He needs Erik to touch him, his skin, like every part of him is on fire and Erik’s hands are all that hold the power to extinguish it. The elders never told him the yearning would ache like this, but Charles supposes they needn’t have; a mermaid will never reject their soulmate, will never leave them alone long enough to feel physically sick at their absence. Charles supposes humans are a different matter entirely.

Charles catches a glimpse of his face in the brass, twisted in discomfort, but pretty, still so pretty. He wonders if it’ll be enough. He touches the stubble of his cheeks and it’s still there, coarse and abrasive, and he wonders if the princess will take one look at him and know what he is.

A mermaid, pretending to be a human, pretending to be a woman. He’d laugh if his lungs would let him.

From the elevator, down a corridor, chasing a flight up stairs. He wants to tell Raven to stop, to let him have a moment, but his throat is so dry his words are trapped and she won’t let him in her mind--

But he can feel two others, very familiar, and very close by. When Erik rounds the corner Charles has hardly any time to compose himself, and when the prince is standing in front of him with _something_ flitting fast across his face it doesn’t even matter in the slightest.

Charles’ mind heaves one great sigh of _Erik,_ his skin singing to him, his fingertips alight with fireworks, with an itch he needs sated. The princess is still on his arm.

He distantly hears Raven calling to him when he rushes past her, pushing his way to Erik with eyes only for him. He distantly hears the princess saying something like _such a pretty woman,_ and then quietly gasping under her breath despite her many years of training, despite the propriety and correct social skills that Charles doesn’t have in this world. But Charles doesn’t have the patience of mind to feel smug at her shock; all he can think, as he pushes himself onto Erik - with his wide grey eyes, bright red cheeks, and heart pounding so hard Charles can feel it - is that Erik is _his,_ his alone, and the way Erik’s got his hands on his shaped waist would feel so perfect and would make him so complete if it weren’t for this _damned_ corset in the way-- 

“Charles?” is all hears, and it could be a whisper, could be a shout, there’s a cotton in Charles’ ears that muffles the world. His vision is dark around the edges, and he thinks that breakfast might get the best of him--

Erik holds him close, and for one peaceful moment he can feel the way their chests press together firmly, and he can’t help but smile with his full, red lips. It’s the last thing Charles remembers before the black swarms like bugs across his vision, the remaining air is squeezed from his tight ribs, and he faints in Erik’s arms. 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Always follow correct corseting procedures~
> 
> (Thanks Thac for you help and additions to this chap <3)


	5. V

Flashes of corridors, of tapestry, maroon and gold carpets layered over stone. Grand oak doors, with their stripes of whorl-stippled panels, and heavy black rings for handles. Glimpses of bright blue and white, and the shifting pleats of a skirt working around rushing legs.

And Erik, holding him under his knees, the other arm pulling his shoulders tight into his heaving chest.

Erik is yelling.

At what Charles can’t be sure, the words passing over him like water. He can feel Erik’s shouts vibrating in his chest, where Charles is pushed against it. He can feel the panicked thumping of Erik’s heart, and Charles hears his own name in the mess of Erik’s frantic mind.

 _Not again;_  not exactly formed, human language, but a flare of something frightened. _He can’t die again._

  

At this angle the corset is digging into the flesh of his waist, cutting straight down above the swells of his narrow hips but the pain is nothing compared to the weight encasing his lungs. It feels like his ribs are about to snap and spear straight through the spongy tissue, piercing him and stopping his breath.

Even though he can’t breathe, even though he can’t tell the moments of clarity from the ones of swarming black, Charles can hear Erik’s mind, and it’s screaming.

Raven’s shouting something, Erik barks back at her, then he feels Erik shift as he throws open a door with his powers and shoulders his way into the room. “Stay out,” Charles thinks he commands of Raven. The tips of his fingers are numb. Then the door rattles in the frame, locks melting with hisses and sizzles, and all that’s between Charles and Erik is the prince’s thundering heart. 

“We have to get this off,” he’s muttering as he settles Charles down onto a bed - Charles’ own? No, Erik’s, it smells of him - and his hands are dragging up and over his body, trying to find a point with which to start.

“Are you still with me, Charles?” _Please, please, not again, I can’t-_

Charles keens weakly in reply, pulling at the bodice with trembling hands in a feeble attempt at alleviating some of the pressure, but none is lifted. Silk slides over silk in a whisper. Erik pushes his legs apart to settle between them, they fall open limply, and if Charles weren’t choking he’d blush. Then Charles feels the gloves sliding over his wrists and off each finger, and then the air is cool against his hands, and his throat too as Erik hastily unwinds the scarf.

It’s little relief, but then, _then,_ the soft cotton of the dress is being torn down the centre, and the sleeves slide down his arms as the bodice and skirt pool either side of his chest and under his thighs. Erik can’t move fast enough, and now Charles is bared and Erik’s mind is brighter and louder than it was before.

Later, Charles will think back on this and convince himself it was the delirium, that he was teetering on the brink of unconsciousness, of asphyxiation. When he feels Erik’s mind, everything is bared in a way that Charles can’t believe. Charles pushes himself on shaking arms, and when their eyes lock, dazed and teary meeting wide and worried, Charles hears with an uncanny clarity something Erik keeps only in his mind. For a single moment the flaring pain of the corset and the weight on his lungs is eclipsed by something greater and all Charles can see and feel and hear and want is Erik, _his Erik_ , in front of him, so close he could kiss.

Erik thinks, _I love him too much to lose him,_ and Charles blames it on the tightness squeezing the breath out of his lungs.

There’s a tugging on his chest and then Erik looks down, breaking the contact, the moment, instead fixing his gaze on the corset and smoothing his hands over the front, feeling out each band of metal. Charles licks his lips and they taste like salt. “Hurry,” he whispers, and Erik glances up once before he curls his fingers through the laces crossing over the front, the metal bows, and the corset rips down the middle.

  

The breath he sucks comes too quickly and he splutters, but Erik is all over him pulling him up and stretching him, opening his airways and freeing his lungs. Beside him, he has one hand supporting the back of Charles’ neck, the other pressing just over Charles’ nave`l, thumb sweeping a calming arc across his belly, whispering and murmuring words Charles can’t understand. 

But from the way Erik’s mind is thrumming, coursing through colours and feelings and sensations that are so unmistakeable, so recognisable to Charles, he thinks that it hardly even matters.

“I’m sorry,” he begins once his lungs have filled with air four or so times, because it seems like the right thing to say; because he took Erik away from that pretty princess, who’d probably never suffer something as embarrassing as this because she is utterly, completely perfect. 

And then Erik does the strangest thing, Charles really can’t understand it. The moment Charles speaks, Erik is pulling him closer, tighter, cradling him and looking down at him with lingering fear on the edges of his wide eyes, and his mind whirs louder, yelling contradictions and blaring denials. “No,” he rasps, so quick Charles would be surprised if he could feel anything other than the tingling of having Erik against his body. “No, Charles, I’m sorry; I’m sorry I left you, that this happened.” He brings his hand to Charles’ sweat and tear streaked cheek, thumbing the swell of bone and flesh below his eye, and Charles thinks he could melt. “I wasn’t there for you, and I should have been.”

Maybe Charles died, and this is what comes after, because Erik only ever held him like this once before and in those moments Charles had been on the cusp, the precipice, just like this, the only difference the one between whipcords and corsets.

Charles settles a hand on Erik’s neck, above his collar, and he finds a pulse there, hammering away. Real. The way Erik leans into the touch makes Charles ache.

“What were you doing?” Erik sounds as breathless as Charles feels. His eyes fill wetly and then shut, and Charles gives him his privacy. In turn, he feels himself blush after glancing down at his bared chest, the garters still clipped from the corset to the belts around each thigh. The undergarments - _panties,_ Charles thinks to the flare of a strange twinge in his chest - stretch over his groin, and he feels vulnerable, defenceless, lying in Erik’s arms like this; but he thinks that Erik, for some strange reason, might just feel the same way.

Charles is almost too afraid to move, to speak, in case the moment is shattered and Erik retreats. He can’t scare him off like every other time, because if this is what it took to be in Erik’s arms Charles doesn’t know he can do it again. But he licks his lips, swallows, and tries to remember the exact feeling of having Erik’s hands pressing against his skin, just in case. “I wanted to be what you wanted.” 

Erik’s eyes are red-rimmed, his nose bright and blotchy, but when he looks down at Charles the mermaid isn’t sure he’s ever seen Erik so handsome; so open. _You already are,_ thinks Erik, so loud and vehement he must mean for Charles to hear, but his mouth stays a tight, pressed line. There’s more there, behind Erik’s hard eyes, kept hidden away in his heart and in his mind, neither of which Charles feels he has the right to touch. It’s almost surreal to even have Erik like this, it’s as if this is all a fabrication of Charles’ dazed state.

As he’s looking up at the prince, Raven pounds against the door so violently it rattles against where Erik had melted the lock. _For my privacy,_ Charles realises with a lurch and a sudden dry feeling on his tongue. Not to keep her out. Erik pulls his hand from Charles’ chest to reach towards the door, fingers clawed, but he doesn’t look away. The door groans as the metal slithers into its correct spots, but before Raven kicks the door in Charles reaches up to still him, pushing himself into a sit, and he asks with a worried glance, “The princess?” 

“I can’t,” Erik whispers, so soft Charles wonders if he’s meant to hear it at all. “I can’t pretend I love her.”

That isn’t what Charles meant. That’s not what he meant. 

Raven bursts into the room in a stumble, her words faster than her legs and louder than anything Charles or Erik might begin to say after that, and she crosses the room almost in a run. She throws herself on the bed, kneeling in front of Charles and grabbing at him, pulling him into her arms and crying against his shoulder and pushing him at a short length to inspect him. She’s speaking too fast for Charles to catch anything, and her tone is distorted by her distress, words warbling and throat tight with tears. Through it all Erik is never far, his hand on Charles’ bare back, between the angles of his shoulderblades, and Charles is sure the contact is just as grounding to Erik as it is for him.

He’s sure Erik needs this just as badly, especially now, especially with what almost happened.

“I’m so sorry,” sobs Raven - or at least, that’s what Charles thinks she says - and Charles resorts to petting her hair and holding her close because his mouth is still dry and Erik is still looking at him like he’s said too much. Like he’s said too much, but still not enough.

The princess isn’t standing in the open doorway, for that Charles is grateful, his dignity already withered away enough, but he can’t help wonder where she ran off to. Maybe to get help. Maybe she ran into Shaw, and she’ll tell him of the man that fainted right before her in a dress, carried away by Erik--

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Raven asks slowly, and Charles brings his gaze back into focus. “Water? I’ll get you water? Oh, I should have Marie fix you up-”

“Raven,” interrupts Erik in a soft rumble, suddenly exhausted, and she breaks off quickly, backing up slightly, too. Raven and Erik always have their tiffs and bickers, but Charles doesn’t think this’ll pass and be forgotten in a simple matter of moments. Then Erik finishes, “Something from Marie would be lovely,” and even Charles knows that Raven feels like she has to do something to atone, to keep busy to keep the guilt at bay, and he didn’t even have to skim her mind.

She scrambles from the bed, caught in her skirts and almost tripping, but she slips from the room and out of sight, taking her rambunctious, harried, impervious mind with her; and he’s left with Erik, who’s a mess of a different kind.

“I must look a wreck,” Charles tries to joke, dabbing at his still-damp cheeks. The tips of his fingers come back dyed pink and a strange kind of dark grey, and Charles remembers his eye makeup and huffs.

Erik shakes his head, but still can’t bring himself to speak. Finally, he pulls away from Charles, the spaces of his skin his hands had been caressing left cold and open. Charles won’t let himself feel the disappointment hiding around the corners of his heart. Erik clears his throat. “Did Raven do your makeup?” he asks, a little stunted, and he helps Charles from the bed and then tucks his hands away.

He won’t touch him, and Charles almost wants to sigh.

“Yes,” he says instead, and kicks his slippers off the rest of the way. He can’t help a small grumble when he sees the dress, torn down the middle. He wonders what they’ll tell Logan. He’s half sure it wouldn’t matter if Erik were to storm down to the city now and start an all-out brawl with the tailor about the corset, Howlett would still quirk a thick eyebrow and his top lip would tug in that strange way, revealing his teeth as if they were fangs, and he’d give them both a _look_ Charles doesn’t think he understands the meaning of. Charles swallows, and when he catches Erik looking at him the prince darts his vision away. “I wanted to hide the- this.” He reaches forward before his mind can tell him not to, pulling Erik’s hand away from where it hangs limply at his side to nuzzle the rough palm. He can feel his stubble dragging over Erik’s skin, and he flushes in embarrassment, though he’s not sure why.

Erik looks like he wants to frown and laugh at the same time, and it makes for a rather unattractive expression. “You wanted to hide your stubble?” he clarifies. Charles lets him go, but Erik doesn’t. “Why?”

It feels like he’s about to divulge some great secret, more important than anything he’s told Erik of mermaids, of his heritage, of him. Bashfulness, fear? Or simple, stomach-churning exhilaration of having Erik’s hand on him? “Human women do not have it.” He says it like it explains everything.

Erik just looks at him a moment, but doesn’t question, and Charles doesn’t know why he feels disappointed. “I can offer you a more proactive solution,” says Erik wryly then, before he draws away and makes about scooping the tatters of Charles’ dress and corset. “I’ll need to you trust me, but we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

Charles simply watches him as he skirts the bed and leaves the dress on a stool. The others are in Charles’ room, where Raven left them, so for now Erik takes his nightdress and opens it for Charles to duck into. Erik’s voice is steadily warming again, returning to its usual tenor, and his eyes crinkle at the corners when he spies Charles watching him. “I trust you. 

Erik turns so Charles can’t see his expression, but he busies himself over by his wash basin, where lies a fluffy towel, a flat and a small, brown flap of leather. Erik takes them in his hands, and then cocks his head towards the door. “Come on, then.”

Barefoot, Charles pads after him, skipping a step to keep at Erik’s side. There’s hardly space between them like normal and Charles’ arm brushes against Erik’s one too many times to be accidental; but with every nudge, every fleeting touch of fingers against a wrist or the ridges of knuckles, courage fills Charles and he wonders just how far this can go, just how far Erik will let him.

They step into the elevator and Charles pulls the lever to the lower floors. He can feel Erik smiling at him, and when the doors open, and he can feel Erik’s body heat through the thin cotton of his nightdress, and their fingers tangle for the briefest of seconds, Charles thinks that it couldn’t hurt to try…

They walk down the hall, with Charles resting their fingers together, loose and light, but Erik doesn’t pull away. Not this time.

That is, until two figures appear from a stairwell off to the side, and Erik lets go of Charles’ hand to push in front of him.

“Easy,” calls one of the pair in a light chuckle, holding his hands up placatingly. He jogs up to them, and Charles can see the tense lines of Erik’s shoulders melt in calm recognition. He’s not sure why he feels this flare of jealousy. “Your Highness, Mr Charles,” the knight greets, smiling over Erik’s shoulder at where Charles hides, and Charles wants to huff at the miracles that broad smile is working for his temper; but he can’t. 

Especially not when there’s something niggling at the back of his mind, trying to figure out why their presence is familiar.

“Munoz, Summers,” Erik grunts, nodding to them both as the second knight sidles up to his partner. He doesn’t smile at him, barely even acknowledges him, giving him a passing glance before facing Erik. “What is it?”

Tentatively, Charles steps around to Erik’s side, glancing between the three humans. Now, Munoz’s smile dampens, his lips forming a tight line. “There’s been a sighting.” 

At the same time as Erik’s sharp intake of breath comes Summers whirling on his partner with a strange softness in his eyes, and he hisses to him, “With _him_ here?” But Munoz raises a hand sharply, silencing him.

Charles knows humans aren’t telepathic, but from the way the knights’ minds are working in tandem, Charles wonders if perhaps, maybe, some are.

“Charles isn’t one of _them,_ ” Munoz explains, “And he has a right to know.” But Summers doesn’t look convinced.

“How many?” rasps Erik then, and now he’s looking down at Charles with wide, panicked eyes. All Charles seems to do is cause Erik distress. He should feel guilty.

If Munoz notices the way Erik looks at him he says nothing. “We can’t be sure. Too small to be a pod. Three, or four at most. We spotted them on patrol.”

“Mermaids?” Charles asks softly, and Summers hastily glances around, but they’re alone and safe for now.

“Yes,” replies Munoz, offering a sad kind of smile. “We think they’re looking for you.” 

Charles frowns. “But they tried to kill me-”

And then Charles looks back up at the knights, Armando Munoz and Alex Summers, and he realises why they’re familiar; because they carried him to the bathroom though the stormy twilight of that fateful night. Because they helped save him.

“They’ve not found your body, so they probably assume you’re still alive. With the injuries you had you wouldn’t have been able to swim farther than the island. And they know about Erik.” Here, Armando gives the prince a pointed glance before looking back to Charles. “It was only scouts today. But in a few days, it could be an army.”

Erik’s hand brushes down Charles’ arm in reassurance. “Shaw cannot find out about this. He’ll start an all-out war with the merfolk, and… he’ll start asking questions.”

Everyone looks at Charles; he can feel their eyes watching him. He leans in closer to Erik, taking comfort from the way he can hear his heart, his mind, and feel the warmth from his skin. “I would advise against leaving the castle at all, Charles,” Armando offers. “At this point, until we can sort something out, it’s just too dangerous.”

But what is there to remedy, to sort? The alliance? Charles knows Marko won’t hear it. He loathed Charles from the moment he’d been Chosen, from the moment the _Q’ian_ had risen from her throne of marble stone and corals, her plume of white glittering mist tailing her like a skirt, and pressed the flat of her glowing palm to Charles’ cheek, one mermaid of a hundred of the royal court.

Marko had been furious. _Cain shall be the Q’ian’ee,_ he’d always boast. That was before. Charles’ mother hadn’t cared. 

Maybe Cain _is_ the heir, now. An heir without a _Q’ian_ to guide him. Remembering how violent and taciturn Cain had been before, Charles doesn’t want to think on how he must be now. He’s probably safer on the land than in his own waters. 

He looks back to the humans, sighs quietly, and tries not to feel too bitter. Even if the alliance were fixed, Charles wouldn’t be allowed back, not with Marko’s new shift into power. Especially not since he took up residence with the very clan of humans that slaughtered their leader.

“Charles,” says Erik softly, knowingly. “It’ll be okay. We’ll keep you safe.”

“That’s right,” declares Munoz, “Alex and I will always be here for you.”

And then _that_ clicks, too; the link of their minds, the way they look at each other, the fondness with which Armando speaks his partner's name. Charles’ mouth forms a perfect o, and then he says softly, hardly even meaning to say it aloud, “You are… mated.” If he wasn’t so keenly aware of Erik’s every breath he would miss the way he stiffens. “But Erik, you said only men and women-”

“ _Charles,_ ” Erik hisses, nudging him slightly. Armando is looking at him with mischief in his eyes, flicking between the prince and the mermaid. Alex has gone bright red, right up to the roots of his light blond hair, and won’t look anywhere but the floor. Erik is looking at the wall over Alex’s shoulder like it’s holding the most riveting piece of tapestry he’s ever seen. Charles thinks that if Erik wasn’t stern and proper he might be as red as the knight. Erik clears his throat, still looking at the wall. “Time to go. Be careful.”

Armando is looking at him in a way Charles can’t discern, his head cocked slightly and his eyebrow raised. When Erik takes Charles’ hand gently, tugging him to spur him into a walk, Charles catches Armando’s eyes flicking down to their tangled fingers, and when Erik isn’t looking anymore he smiles widely. “You both be careful, too,” he calls. He says it like it holds more meaning than it should.

Sunlight filters through the stained glass panes of the windows and coats the bathroom in streaks of purples and reds, catching on the mosaic tiling and shimmering around the room. Behind him, Charles hears Erik lock the door, and against the blue and white tiles his steps fall silently. Here, everything echoes, the domed ceilings casting back sounds accompanied by a low tenor, and so when Erik speaks it’s hardly a surprise to Charles that he shivers; his voice surrounds him, just as his mind does, just as he does entirely.

“Sit down over on the bench,” he instructs, voice still a little gruff from before, inclining his head to the porcelain bench that skirts the wall to Charles’ right. “I’m going to shave you. It might seem a little scary at the start, but I promise, Charles, I won’t hurt you.”

He gives Charles the image of a man, two men, one bringing a blade over the face of the other in swift little strokes. The faucets behind Erik groan and crank as he turns them with his powers. A lazy stream of water splashes against the tiles and offers a gentle white noise. In front of him Erik is setting the jar and the leather strop on the bench, he touches Charles’ shoulder briefly as he circles him to the bath and dips one side of the towel into the shallow water.

“You can take off your nightdress if you’d like, so it doesn’t get wet.”

Erik isn’t looking at him, but Charles can see the red on his cheeks anyway.

His arms stick a little in the sleeves, but one tug and then two and he’s free, folding the dress into a messy square and setting it aside. He’s still wearing his stockings, he realises, and the garter belt, too. The underwear are stretched over his crotch. Before he can do anything about it Erik is turning back to him, but he stops when he catches sight of Charles. The mermaid tries not to heat under Erik’s heavy gaze. He tries to ignore the way he can tell where Erik’s eyes are flicking over his body.

“Um,” begins the prince, wetting his lips. “Uh.”

Erik glances off at the wall, Charles can feel his mind trying to piece itself back together. He swallows, and Charles watches on as Erik tries really hard to get the words to work. He clears his throat, opens his mouth, and starts again.  
  
“Um.”

It all very much reminds Charles of the younger mermaids back home, of the crushes they had, of the way they’d stutter and start in each other's presence. If Charles stretches a little, pulls his arms over his head and angles his knees together, and if Erik’s eyes get stuck of the lines and movements of his body, well. Charles was young once. He knows how to flirt.

And Erik might just let him, now.

“You can… You remain human if only it’s your face that’s damp, yes?” Erik manages eventually, and when he stands in front of Charles he doesn’t look him in the eye. Charles nods. “Tilt your head a little…”

Erik touches him as he would the delicate petals of a flower. His fingertips press just behind Charles’ jaw, at a small, plush area, made of fat and skin. “There,” murmurs Erik, finding an angle he favours, and Charles is made to look up into those piercing green eyes. Looking up at him is like looking up at the sky with his back against the cold sand, gazing up through the water. The golden sun is a glimmer worlds away, distorted by waves, out of Charles’ reach.

Charles breathes slowly. He’s part of this world now.

Erik’s hand follows the line of his jaw. He should be worried about Erik feeling the hair, worried of Erik rejecting him for it; but all that’s between them is this calm fire, this still sea, a moment where everything is controlled, at peace.

Understood.

Taking care not to wet any part of Charles other than his cheeks, chin and throat, Erik works the damp corner of the towel over Charles’ face. He’s talking, murmuring about what he’s doing. _Shaving,_ Charles hears, he doesn’t nod. _Stay very still._

Erik takes his jacket off, leaving a white shirt below that’s tucked into the high waist of his breeches. The material is thick, but with this proximity if Charles looks long enough he can see the faint, dark hairs covering Erik’s abdomen behind it. The muscles shift as Erik leans over, and Charles swallows.

There’s a short, thick brush that he works over the opening of a jar. A kind of soap must be within, for it lathers with thick foam. It takes a while, five minutes or so, of watching Erik wring a little water into the pot and work the soap, but soon he’s leaning forward to Charles, so close Charles can see each faint freckle marking his skin. “It might be a little cold,” Erik murmurs. Charles feels his breath against his lips.

He feels exposed, but not over his body; on his cheeks. His hands twitch, half brought up to cover his hair, to cover the part of him that Erik won’t like, but they settle when Erik takes his chin in hand and tilts him up.

The brush is soft, and cold, like Erik warned, and when Erik paints the lather over Charles’ throat it tickles. There’s a tightness in his belly he’s only felt once or twice before, and Charles tries to remember -- the dream, last night. His throat bobs when he swallows, he feels the slide of the soap. The dream, his nakedness, their proximity; Charles fidgets. Where the brush is cold, everything feels suddenly, inexplicably hot.

“Curl your lips in, like-- that, good.” Erik works the creamy soap over his mouth, under his nose, up the sides of his face where the hair grows a little scratchier. Charles must look a fool like this, half his face covered in white, his lips bright red from the heat of his mouth. Erik looks at him a moment too long. He _must_ look silly.

“I’m going to start shaving you,” Erik tells him after he opens the leather and pulls a blade from inside, unfurling it at its shiny silver hinge. Charles can see his reflection clear as if he were looking in a mirror. “This is a razor. They are very sharp and dangerous, but I’ll use this to cut the hair. I’ll use my powers, because human hands shake. My control over metal never has.”

Charles knows what a razor is. Although, Marko’s, the ones belonging to Marko’s fighters, they were different. They were swords and spears, with long, curved blades and small hilts, various weapons migrated and traded across the oceans from other clans, other waters.

Charles’s hands chafe his thighs. “We don’t have to do this,” continues Erik, very slowly, and he’s looking in Charles’ eyes with such an intensity that Charles itches to look away, to shut Erik out.

He’ll have Erik’s powers on him, around him. He’ll be the sole focus of Erik’s attention for however long this’ll take. No princess can take him away now. “I want to.”

Erik takes Charles’ hand from his thigh, his thumb smoothing a line of a scar, tracing it briefly before rubbing over Charles’ knuckles. “You’re very brave, Charles.” 

The first swipe of the blade is cold, and Charles can’t help but flinch. _Sorry._ Erik wipes the razor on the towel where he’s tucked it into his breeches, then he holds it in his palm to warm it. The razor levitates, and then slowly edges to Charles’ cheek.

Erik’s still holding his hand. Charles wonders who’ll let go first.

Unsure as to whether or not keep his eyes open, Charles blinks up at Erik, who looks down at him in rapt dedication. Charles chases the lines of his face, the knotting of his brows, the shadows that catch below his cheekbones and turn him gaunt-looking. Then, when looking at him gets too much, he shuts his eyes and instead loses himself in his other senses.

The soap smells sharp, slightly perfumed; but Charles can smell Erik’s musk of sweat and his own personal scent over it. He listens to the graze of metal over hair and skin; but with his keen hearing the beating of Erik’s heart and his long, slow breaths are louder. Erik’s fingers are gently tangled with his own, still down on his thigh; but his skin itches for more contact.

“May I ask you a question, Charles?” begins the prince, quickly adding, “Tell me with your mind.”

 _Anything,_ thinks Charles. If he’d spoken it aloud, it’d be delivered on a sigh.

A moment more of Erik’s quiet concentration, or perhaps a moment needed to work up his courage, but he continues and asks, “Why were you exiled?”

Maybe if Charles had focused more on Erik’s mind, he’d be ready for the question; but no, Charles knows the surprise would still come. He must take too long to answer, for Erik hastily apologises, “I’m sorry, that was rude of me, I shouldn’t have.”

Charles cuts him off with a thought, which had he spoken he might have shouted. _No,_ Charles fills the thought with adamance. _You can ask. You deserve to know._ After all, he risked everything to save him. 

But how to tell him? _Because I fell in love with you. Because I wanted to seduce you. Because I attempted to mate with you._ No. Erik could accidentally kill him in his shock, shaky powers be damned.

 _Because I wouldn’t kill you,_ is what Charles says instead. Erik stills, and Charles waits to be struck, or sliced, or to have his throat slit.

But it doesn’t come. Of course not. Because of course Erik would never hurt him like that, because Erik is good, just, and Erik _must,_ Erik _has to_ feel…

“I suppose your clan didn’t much like that,” Erik chuckles sarcastically, lip caught in a slight sneer. “Was I your target?”

 _That’s not really how it works,_ Charles thinks dryly. He can’t say, _we kill whoever we can,_ though, so he doesn’t. Erik knew those men, knew the men of all the ships Charles and his clan had sunk. Charles couldn’t be so cruel to someone he loves.

The razor shaves down the column of his throat, and Charles sits exceptionally still on the bench. “You don’t wear the markings of the other warriors. That’s how you call them, yes?”

 _Fighters, I suppose._ Erik’s thumb is working over his knuckles, so slow and so idle Charles has to wonder if Erik even knows he’s doing it at all. _I never was one. I never wanted to be._  

“Then why were you out that night?”

Erik cleans off the razor on the towel at intervals, and even the way he wipes the blade seems strangely calming. _I’m the strongest telepathically. The others can communicate, but I can control. Only me._

“Not even your _Q’ian_?” Erik wonders. It fills Charles with a warm little pride in his chest to hear Erik using his language, his terms. “They use you for your power. I hope I’m not overstepping, but your clan don’t exactly sound so kind.”

A gasp hitches in Charles’ throat when the blade runs too quickly over his right cheek. There’s no blood, but Erik presses his thumb over the red patch, soothing it. Charles wants to push him away -- he’ll feel the stubble, he’ll be disgusted -- but then Erik holds him like that for a moment too long, and Charles freezes in confusion because he doesn’t understand what that means.

 _Things changed when the Q’ian was killed._ He tries for nonchalance. He hopes he fakes it well enough. He wonders if Erik can feel the heat of his blush where he's touching.

Erik’s so quiet in his concentration that Charles wonders if he heard him. He feels oddly irritated that he didn’t, and then guilty, and then the squeeze of Erik’s hand around his.

“You’ll never do anything against your will again, Charles. As long as I’m with you. I promise you that.”

Charles sucks a breath. “Even though I convinced the first mate to start the fire?”

Erik pauses to look at him, the razor a short space away from his cheek. He’s admitted it now, confessed. He could never wipe Erik’s mind. He can’t take it back.

 _Don’t pretend you don’t know why we were there, too,_ Erik thinks. There’s no malice or anger, nothing but a somber, sad understanding. “As long as I breathe.”

Charles looses a sigh he’d not realised he’d been holding, and in his relief can’t help but lean into Erik’s touch. “Thank you, Erik.”

It’s over quicker than Charles had anticipated. Erik pats the remaining suds from his cheeks, inspects him for any missed hairs (to which Charles turns bright red at proximity and notion), and the walks over to wash the razor in the bath. While he’s turned Charles brings his hands to his cheeks, running his fingers all over the velvety smooth expanse of skin, feeling not once the scratch of hair that was once there. Charles grins into his palm. When he feels a warm, bright glow in Erik’s mind does he find the prince watching him. 

  
    


“Would you like to take your bath now?” Behind him, Erik turns the faucets with a clench of his fingers.

“Do we have time?” 

“All the time in the world for you.” 

Charles swallows against the lump in his throat. “And the princess?”

Now Erik bristles. Charles can see the line of his shoulders turn stiff. “I’m sure Princess Magda will be all right.”

“Do you think you’ll marry her?” It’s a risky question. The buckle of the garter is fickle, but Charles works it open to keep his eyes from Erik, to keep from seeing his reaction.

But of course, Erik steps close to him before answering. He falls to one knee, and without hesitation pushes Charles’ hands away to open the clasp himself. “I have to.”

The silky strap tickles his inner thigh where Erik pulls it free. _I can do this myself,_ he wants to say, _you’re confusing me._ But instead he lets his knees fall open, just slightly, and he lets his eyes linger Erik’s face, the soft pink there up on his cheeks, the way his pupils flare and turn the pretty green to grey. His long fingers slip into the lacey fringe of his stocking, and slowly pull it down over his knee.

“Do you want to marry her?”

Erik’s fingers circle around Charles’ ankle and gently lift his foot. The way the stocking slides over his heel makes Charles shiver. “I have to.”

And then Erik rises and takes his jacket and walks to the door. When Charles brushes his mind he recoils, as if he’d been burnt off the chilling cold that secures Erik’s thoughts and renders them unreadable. It makes no sense, Erik had been so open with him all afternoon-- 

“I’ll wait for you outside.” Even his voice sounds distant, all the warmth snuffed from it. _No,_ thinks Charles, standing quickly, the tile cool against his bare feet. _No,_ because he thinks he can understand, he thinks he knows why Erik is like this now. He knows why Erik can’t let himself love.

“Please,” Charles urges with a tight throat. “Please stay with me, Erik.” _Don’t leave._

The melted lock is still, half warped now in the middle of Erik’s exit. Erik stares at the door, frozen for so long that Charles wonders if he’ll ever move, before Charles catches the faintest of sighs. He looses one of his own, in relief, when Erik lets his hand drop to his side. “No more questions,” whispers Erik. 

Charles’ heart is beating so hard he wonders if the prince can see it thumping beneath his skin. “All right.”

The panties tangle around his ankles. With his eyes on Erik, Charles walks from them and across to the three steps down into the bath. Erik’s watching him from the corner of his eye, Charles can tell, but he says nothing, hardly moves at all, as if when he does Charles will spook or vanish or leave. Charles almost wants to laugh; Erik couldn’t be more wrong.

The water is neither hot nor cold, some balance in between that only pushes a few lazy wisps of steam from the surface. His nudity doesn’t bother him; so Charles doesn’t rush into the water for modesty, simply stands on the first step watching it for a short moment. There’s a rustle behind him, but it’s simply Erik, who’s turned around now and watches him with what Charles can sense as a strange hesitation; as guilt. Recognising it is like figuring another piece of a puzzle, realising where it fits to make the picture. 

His toes are first, his foot angled as he steps down to the second level, and even though it’s no ocean, no expanse of sea, the water calls to him like it’s home. It laps at his shins, tickling the soft, tender skin hidden behind his knees, circling each thick, scarred thigh as he continues down. Charles has only one moment to relish the slippery gloss of the mosaic tiles beneath the soles of his feet before they vanish completely, taken by the sudden shimmer of light that fans across the bath from his hips, and replacing them with the large translucent fins of his true form. 

He hears Erik gasp quietly behind him. His thighs press together on instinct, and then blend without leaving a seam. From his hips protrudes the wide, webby fins that card through the water. Charles can feel everything human about him changing, reforming, and then, with another flare of light from the water and a sigh Charles has reverted back to his true kind, and he dives into the water with the familiarity he feels when he’s at Erik’s side.

The bath isn’t big, but he swims its perimeter three or four laps before he resurfaces, flicking water from his eyes and tossing his wet hair from his forehead. Erik is watching him, now closer to the bath, as if he’d started towards the mermaid but remembered himself and froze. There’s an urge in Charles, something purely instinctual, and it flares from his navel and climbs the rungs of his ribs to settle and simmer within his heart. He swims to the edge of the bath, resting his arms against the curved ledge, leaning his chin just on his wrist. He can practically _see_ Erik swallow, can feel the turbulent thoughts tumbling through his mind, can see the way his blush spreads from his cheeks to the hollow of his neck. 

Charles’ own throat feels warm - it’s his his voice, he realises with a strange little pound in his chest - and he licks the water from his red lips.

Maybe he should feel guilty, because he sees the apprehension within Erik, he knows how he shies. And now he finally thinks he might know why. Humans can be so conservative. This one just needs a nudge, something to entice him, and Charles shouldn’t feel guilty for that.

Erik is Charles’ mate, after all. He isn’t bedecked by his silver like last time at the pools, he’s without his necklaces and bangles and cuffs, but the way the colours from the stained glass fall down on where he lingers, tail behind him snaking through the water lazily, he’s blanketed in a rainbow brighter than any gem.

Charles can see that Erik wants him. He can smell it on him, his scent heavy on his tongue. Charles swallows, pulls himself up slightly, flexing his muscles. He knows Erik catches it.

Magda can’t give him this, Charles thinks bitterly, looking up at Erik from under his brow. A wet tress curls across his forehead, plastered by the cool bathwater, and a droplet sluices down the side of his face. Magda can’t make Erik feel like this, frozen in place and yet still, somehow, falling apart.

Erik is _his;_ but it’s more than Charles being possessive. He needs Erik. He needs him or else he’ll go crazy, because there’s only so much of this his heart can take.

So Charles coils his tail through the purple water, throws Erik one last heated glance, and bites his bottom lip between his teeth. When he speaks it’s like a weight’s been lifted from his throat. 

“Won’t you come in with me?”

This is how some mermaids do it, the cruel ones Charles dislikes. But for Charles this isn’t about seducing Erik with the intention of drowning him; not at all. 

To his surprise, Erik doesn’t even struggle with himself. “Is that what you want?” he asks softly, as if he were in a trance. As he walks forward he unbuttons the collar of his shirt, then works on the cuffs and their neat little silver pins.

Charles wants Erik’s hands all over his body, wants to feel the beat of his heart where their chests are pressed together. Charles wants Erik to want him, and to accept it. He wants Erik to accept himself. 

“Yes. If you want it.” 

And of course he does; Erik’s gaze is so heavy Charles can feel it on him. Erik’s mind is brighter than gold; brother than the sun when it hits the city. 

Erik pulls the shirt off in one easy movement. His muscles ripple across his abdomen, and Charles sucks a breath between his teeth so quick he nearly coughs. Instead he ducks down into the water, leaving only his eyes above and pinned on Erik. His gills flutter quickly along his throat.

The belt snakes through the loops of his pants, and then falls with a clatter to the tiles. The clasps on his boots undo themselves with only a clench of Erik’s fingers to guide them, and then he pulls them off as he walks to the ledge. His long fingers make quick work of the laces at his crotch, and then the breeches are pooled around his ankles, and then he steps from them…

Erik stands before him naked sans for the cotton underpants covering his crotch, down to half of each thigh. Charles pushes back from the tiles, drifting on his back and showing the muscled plains of his torso. His nipples are as flushed as his lips, and he catches Erik looking at them, but the man glances away off to the side.

“I do not think of human bodies the way you do,” Charles reminds him with a grin and a playful splash of his tail.

Erik smiles to himself. And then he pushes his underwear down to his feet, and steps from them, and then down to the first level and then the second and Charles half can’t believe this is really happening at all.

Like the water is part of him he feels the way it creeps up Erik’s thighs, up to his navel where he stands in the shallows. He follows Charles as he swims further across the pool, and Charles almost feels jealous of the way the water laps against his chest. His hands should be on Erik like that, _or his tongue,_ he thinks wickedly, letting his eyes roam freely over Erik’s chest.

They simply move around the bath, Charles floating, Erik wading. At its deepest the water comes to Erik’s neck. He ducks his head under quickly, resurfacing with a chuckle and flicking his wet hair. When the ship had sunk Charles hadn’t been able to see much of the prince; but now, Charles decides that he very much likes Erik when he is wet.

“What’s it like,” Erik says eventually, breaking the silence. Charles doesn’t know how much time has passed, but the coloured shadows from the windows are a little high on the walls now. Erik’s looking at his tail as he speaks. It pulses with ripples of light blue and green, shimmering beneath the surface of the water. “What’s it like having a tail?” 

Charles shrugs, humming quietly. The way his throat opens for the sound makes him want to sing -- but no, not yet. Erik might… not yet. “Swimming feels like flying.” 

The water comes just beneath Erik’s nipples. They’re browner than Charles’ but just as flushed. “I think I’d like it,” he muses, smiling softly and watching the way Charles’ fins wave at his hips, a fluttering so soft like a petal caught in the breeze. “To swim as far and as fast as you want.”

“We can give you a tail one day.”

Erik grins broadly. “You can do that?”

Charles smiles in return, and he kicks his tail in front of him, swimming easily. “I am the prince,” he explains. “I can do many things.”

“Even that kind of magic?” Erik’s eyes are trained on him as the mermaid circles him lazily, and the way he’s gazing unabashedly, looking his fill, flicking his attention from Charles’ lips to his neck and his nipples, it makes Charles heavy with that delicious tight heat once more.

But Charles doesn’t have a moment to answer before Erik’s hand settles on his flank and runs a smooth pet down his side. He gasps at the sensation, each scale traced by Erik’s fingertips suddenly alight with tingling.

Erik pulls away as if he’d been burnt, eyes flicking over Charles’ face in a frantic search for some kind of pain, any kind of indication that he’d done wrong. Charles’ sure he’s flushed down to his chest, he _knows_ he is, for everything is suddenly so hot and tight he can hardly breathe, can hardly _believe_ that just having Erik touching his tail would evoke something like this--

Erik swallows, reaches out his hand, and slowly does it once again.

This time he rubs from Charles’ side to his front, so dangerously close to _that part_ of Charles he nearly pulls away in shock. But after the weeks of this back and forth trepidation, these last few drawn out, unbearable days, he can’t. Having Erik’s hands on him - on his tail, against the intimate, secret places reserved only for mates - is like feeling the sun on his face after a lifetime of living in the darkness below the waves; from the instant it happens Charles can’t get enough.

And just like as if the sun were playing on his face Charles’ cheeks burn bright red, hot all over with blood rushing beneath his fair skin. His tongue feels fat in his mouth, his lips hot and thick. Erik’s fingers splay over his scales, and when Charles looks down his tail is rippling through colours like light through water.

“E-Erik…”

His hand slides up to the fins on his sides, long and translucent, and then, with his eyes locked on Charles, lets his fingers sneak and rub at the tender flesh just beneath where they protrude.

Charles keens. 

The moment the sound slips from his hot lips Charles bites down on his hand. Despite whatever he may do to conceal it Erik visibly startles, glancing up at Charles from beneath his lashes with a curiosity that makes Charles hot again for every wrong reason. “Did I hurt you?” he asks with such a gentle worry Charles’ chest aches as if a weight is compressing it, trapping each beat of his heart and every heave of his lungs.

He could say yes, and Erik would let him go. He knows Erik would. But that’s not what Charles wants, not what he needs. “No,” he whispers truthfully, feeling another wave of heat over his cheeks and chest at the mere admittance of liking this. There’s nothing wrong with it, nothing shameful. Erik is a curious human, tracing each scar and fingering each scale with the reverence of a lover but the eyes of a student. It seems so incongruous to Charles -- until it doesn’t, and he shivers in realisation.

Charles hadn’t even realised Erik had wound a sturdy arm behind him and now holds him around his waist, pulling them close with Charles’ side almost touching Erik’s chest. His other hand is still on his tail rubbing lazily up and down. Charles’ tail is much too long for Erik to be able to chase its entire length with one slide of his palm, but just the small area he works now is so good it almost hurts. He supposes Erik might only be touching his mid-thigh if he were in his human form right now, but that alone is making it hard to breathe easily.

As it is, Charles is panting quickly, sucking breaths between his parted lips. He’s not sure how long he can put up with Erik’s exploratory touches, can handle the intense pleasure of being the sole focus of Erik’s attention. _Not the princess,_ Charles’ delirious mind whispers, _But you. He looks at you._ Charles’ breaths suddenly feel much tighter now.

Erik’s hand slides back along the side of his tail, and his fingers press in under his fin, rubbing in quick, firm circles, and Charles isn’t quick enough to catch a quiet moan. Erik doesn’t stop, having found his sweet spot, and Charles is almost worried that his scales are going to shift and he’s going to present himself to his mate, as if he were in heat, as if Erik _wanted_ to fill him with his babies. Erik can hardly stand to touch him, why would-- oh, why would he want to _fuck_ him--

Erik’s fingers work another long moan from him, and Charles’ head falls so far back in pleasure his fringe wets in the bathwater. _Don’t stop,_ he begs, thought loud and heated there’s no way Erik didn’t hear it. He can feel the scales a short distance down from his navel start to shift, can feel himself opening and his penis starting to evert--

“I’d never stop hurting you, Charles,” Erik continues softly, bitterly, and for a confused moment Charles just lies there nestled against his chest and dazed. It sounds faintly double-sided, but groggy as he is, intoxicated from Erik’s touch, he can hardly muster the energy to even skim his mind.

So instead, he simply slurs, “You don’t hurt me.” And despite everything, despite the princess and the way Erik shies from him, leaving him wanting and lonely and feeling rejected, and completely confused, Charles knows that it’s true. “You never hurt me.” 

Something pained flits across Erik’s features, something in his mind that Charles can feel but isn’t able to discern. His thoughts are like steam, and the moment Charles tries to touch them they part around his fingers and vanish. “I’m not sure about that.” He thumbs the curve of one of Charles’ many scars as he speaks, but Charles just shakes his head fervently, a wild conviction in his wide eyes.

He can feel his arousal fading away. That’s a good thing, he tries to to tell himself. Erik… Erik wouldn’t be ready for that - Erik’s hardly even handling _this._ “Was not your fault,” Charles says slowly, clearly, and his tail ripples through a triad of colours in quick succession.

“But I’m not innocent.”

Where his tail is scared his colours don’t shine. Nothing shimmers beneath the dull, dead flesh. His _Q’ian’s_ tail had shone how the stars do cast across the sky, had glistened like the sun’s reflection on the water. Charles looks down at his own striped tail, marred and marked; branded. _A traitor._ Any mermaid that saw him would have known what he’d done. These were not marks of battle, were not medals of his courage. _You want legs, we’ll cut your tail into two, and you can spread them for that human._

Cain had been the one to chase him from the rockpools that day, and he’d spat those words through a sneer. Charles remembers being lead through that castle dampened with shadows and heavy with death, the only light from the sickly green torch-crystals embedded in the stone walls. He remembers the way Jean wouldn’t look at him from where she hid at the back of the court. Not a real one, of course, but one of Marko’s own choosing.

He’s not seen Jean since then, but he finds he doesn’t miss her one part.

Charles looks at his scars, remembers what they’re there for, and he swallows. Then he looks Erik in the eye, and curls his tail around his hips, coiling it down to his thighs, and his fins brush over a part of Erik that makes him gasp and jolt simultaneously. He hums softly one of the old lovesongs he remembers from when he was young. His throat feels like it’s glowing with warmth as he sings.

Erik’s hands find themselves against Charles’ hips once more, fingers now tracing along the webbing and the lines of cartilage, and Charles shivers against him, moaning into his song and into Erik’s ear. Erik massages in the hidden sweet spot where everything is so much more sensitive, more intimate, a place for only a mate to kiss and lick and touch. And Erik found it so quickly and so cleverly, he knew _exactly_ what his mate needed…

As Charles sings he tilts his head with one hand against Erik’s throat to hold him in place. He can feel himself opening and spreading, and maybe he could shift to find the right angle and then it’d be done, and then Erik would be in him and they’d finally, officially belong to one another. Erik’s mind is warm and yielding, melting around where Charles nestles within it. Charles’ breath hitches as Erik works his fingers harder over his spots, his song halts, and he looks into Erik’s eyes like he’s seeing sunlight for the first time…

There’s a gentle rap of knuckles against the door, and then a croaky, wrecked voice calling through the wood. “Erik? Erik, please be in there. Is Charles okay? I’m so sorry, I just wanted… I just wanted you to…”

The moment shatters. Erik’s eyes snap alert, and he glares over the mess of Charles’ hair at the door. His fingers stop their massage. _No,_ Charles thinks frantically, looking at the door himself. No, Raven can’t be here, she can’t ruin this- “We’re here,” calls Erik, and he takes one last look at Charles before pushing away, untangling himself from his tail, and then he’s hastily stepping from the bath. “Wait a moment, would you?” Erik’s voice sounds just as wrecked as Raven’s; just as wrecked as Charles feels.

He can’t move. All he can do is remain there in the water, heartbeat in his throat and his mind drawing blanks, watching Erik taking his clothes and forcing himself into them despite the way they stick to his skin. He turns and hunkers to step into his breeches, but Charles still sees his erection, and now everything is so much more confusing and the hole in his chest aches deeper.

“Erik,” murmurs Raven, and the way she sounds, the heaviness of the guilt in her mind, Charles can’t really be mad at her. 

If Erik really wanted to be with him he would have called to Raven and told her to wait, or ignored her. If Erik really loved him, really felt the connection between them, he’d not have pushed him away like that, as if he’d woken from a trance and was horrified at what he found himself doing.

Thinking that just makes the sting in Charles’ eyes worse.

The only words Erik speaks to him are delivered curtly, and Erik doesn’t look at him for them. “Get out, please,” he commands, but Charles… Charles almost wants to stay. He wants to know what Erik would do to him, if he really, truly did not love him. Would he break his promises, throw him back in the ocean? Marko’s scouts were looking for him, anyway; may as well save them all the carnage and casualties of battle and go willingly.

He doesn’t though. Of course he couldn’t. With his mind distant and limbs heavy and listless Charles pulls himself from the bath, sliding across the tiles. He glances up at Erik but the prince is staring at the floor as if he’s counting every fracture in each mosaic.

  

Charles forces himself to pull his body to the bench, where he finds the shaving towel and dabs it over his body. It shouldn’t be long til he’s dry enough to transform. 

It shouldn’t be long until Erik will be able to look at him like he isn’t a burden.

Maybe, in the time that all takes, Charles will grow numb to the way every part and piece of him aches.

* * *

 


	6. VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait! I can't promise when the next update will be, but it won't be long! Thanks so much to everyone for commenting, kudos'ing, and especially reading <3

The way that Raven is looking at him is just making everything worse.

She knows, of course she knows - Erik’s standing there, sopping wet from his fringe to his boots. He’d tried to tuck himself up into the waist of his breeches, had laced them tight enough to hurt, but there’s no mistaking the bulge that fills the front of his pants. There’s no mistaking that Charles isn’t just as wet - in his natural form, no less. Raven knows exactly what he was doing. She stands there in the doorway, looking down at her boots. 

Charles won’t look at him either but that’s just as well. Another moment more and Erik doesn’t know what he would have done to the mermaid.

“You found us,” Erik prompts, his voice still heavy and deep with arousal. That just makes this even more awkward.

Raven startles, and she glances at him but even with her blue skin he can tell she’s blushing, simply from the way she’s holding herself. “I just… wanted to make sure you’re well. Both of you.”

 _Well --_ if he was any such thing before then he’s definitely not now. He’s sick for wanting to do those things to Charles; he touched Charles in that concealed place and made him compliant, with only half a mind and slurs that weren’t strong enough to stop Erik if he so wished. And he must have wanted to stop. Charles won’t look at him, his eyes are hard and as red as his cheeks. He’s angry and didn’t want Erik to take advantage of him but he did anyway, because he’s s--

“Marie sent your dinner up, it’s in your room,” Raven continues when she realises Erik won’t reply. Erik glances out the closest window.

“What time is it?”

Raven’s eyes gloss over in thought. She counts silently, then looks back to him. “Past six now.”

He tries not to curse. He’d spent longer with Charles than he’d thought. It’s his fault for not keeping a clear head, for succumbing so quickly to this dark part of him-- “And Princess Magda?” he asks quietly. He doesn’t know why but he hopes Charles hadn’t heard him.

“Lady Kinross and her coterie are entertaining her.”

Magda must think Erik a fool. Perhaps she’d gotten jealous of Charles, of the way Erik carried him to his chest and ran. Perhaps now, even the faintest hint of marriage has dissipated, and Shaw will seize the throne in a matter of weeks, or even days.

“The king and queen?” Erik murmurs now, and finally Raven looks at him in the eye. She must know. She must be able to sense the fear and guilt all over him; looking at her is like looking into a mirror.

“I’ve not seen them, but… I’m sure we could come up with something, I’m sure they’d understand. The princess will confirm that you helped a… a woman.”

“Charles isn’t a woman.” And he isn’t, and he never will be, and Erik just needs to let him go. They need to figure out a permanent living arrangement for the mermaid, because Erik… he can’t control himself, and now he’s hurt Charles, perhaps irrevocably. Maybe Raven could set him up on the mainland, in Hempe, where McCoy is sure to have a few connections especially since he managed to retrieve that book. Charles isn’t a woman, but he is a mermaid and with Shaw, with himself, soon it might be too dangerous. Soon, it might be too late.

Raven swallows. “I know. I just…” She sighs, and takes Erik’s hand where it’s gripping the door. “I know.”

He can hear Charles rustling behind him, but Erik doesn’t turn to address him. “Are you ready?” he asks simply. Charles replies in a series of clicks that Erik recognises by now as an affirmation, but instead of the usual affection and fondness that swells within his chest when he hears Charles chirping all there is now is a cold, roiling guilt; because Charles can’t even stand to _talk_ to him, doesn’t want his words to touch him, doesn’t want to feel Erik’s mind at all.

Erik clenches his fingers, the drain in the bath opens, and it sucks away everything that’d happened between them.

Beside him Charles carries the towel and Erik’s shaving kit. Raven looks at him, and Erik knows she can see the red rimming his eyes and the patchiness around his nose and mouth.

It’s a long, silent walk back up to Erik’s chambers.

* 

Erik doesn’t come to bed for a long time. Too long a time, almost. Though the lamps are still burning in an alcove off the main chambers where Erik sits and studies Charles catches himself dozing, lying still on his back on the flat side of Erik’s bed. Every time, Charles resurfaces with a shudder, a shiver, but when he glances to Erik the man is still hunkered over his desk, engrossed, ignoring. Erik doesn’t come to bed til the lamps drink the kerosene down to dregs, til the heavy pendulums of the clocks swing time into a new day, and Charles has been alone with his thoughts for so long he wants to scream.

But he doesn’t, and he won’t, because having Erik’s attention on him just might be worse than this silence.

Of course, Erik had left them at his chambers to seek out Princess Magda, and even though Charles wasn’t surprised he’d still felt a jealousy that made his throat tight and tongue sour. He’d hardly time to think then because the moment the door was closed he’d had Raven to tame. She’d stood across the space of the room, watching with her yellow eyes narrowed and trained on him, waiting for a crack for permission. Charles could feel her thoughts, so chaotic and fervent. Guilt, apologies she’d not known how to voice; and then, a seam of words, a sentence he could pluck and read and understand. _What had happened,_ Charles translated, watching her knowingly in turn. _What were they doing._

Charles doesn’t know himself, so how could be broach the subject, and how could he ask Raven _what’s wrong with Erik_ without her knowing of his voyeurism. So he’d stayed silent but keenly aware of her thoughts, of her presence, eventually sighing and sitting on the chaise with the trays from Marie.

“I am not upset,” he clarifies between a forkful of fleshy vegetable and a sip of soup. “It isn’t your fault.”

Erik always seems to understand Charles, with his stunted words and half-sentences. Charles hopes Raven can keep up, but he knows she won’t be able to, because no one gets him like Erik. Not even Jean had. 

Raven comes and sits with him then, letting a shaky sigh and looking like she’s halfway between throwing herself on Charles and shying away from him. Guilt, Charles reminds himself. She’s only guilty. There’s nothing wrong with him; but if there was, it would explain Erik. “I just wanted to…” she begins telling the floor, gloved fingers clawing in her red hair. “I just wanted to help.”

“I know.” He doesn’t, but he’ll pretend. Make it up to me, Charles wants to say. You can help by telling me why Erik is how he is.

Charles finishes his dinner as Raven busies herself setting lamps and pulling curtains, shushing the servants away through a sliver of the open door, pulling McCoy’s books down to read to Charles. “All romances,” Raven comments dryly, smiling but neither pleasantly nor towards Charles. She reads to him, and her voice is lovely and smooth, but it's not Erik’s, and so Charles doesn’t find himself lulled into the story like he normally would. It’s probably why, as he looks at the silver tray and undisturbed cloche mid-tale, Charles realises that Erik is sitting for dinner with the princess.

Charles won’t think on it. He can’t.

His stomach is roiling and empty having not eaten since breakfast, but he won’t eat Erik’s food; just in case, just in case. He’s endured worse pain than hunger. He's been enduring it for weeks. 

Finally, a haphazard tower of books later, Erik comes back, and he looks at Charles and Raven coiled together on the chaise with two expressions; the first a flare of _something_ Charles is too scared to name, and the second a tiredness that makes him want to recoil. Charles is wearing the new nightdress from Logan, tucked around his knees and billowy on his arms. It doesn’t catch Erik’s attention, or if it does, he says nothing. He sighs and settles at his desk in the alcove, and he doesn’t move until Raven leaves.

When she does go, taking the trays, patting Charles’ bared shoulder, and then murmuring something to Erik, Charles can see the prince visibly tense. His shoulders are a straight line, his neck crooked as if he’s staring at the desk, counting the whorls. He’s impossibly still, like if he’s quiet enough Charles won’t take notice of him. A creature blending in with the corals, hiding from hungry mouths.

Charles sits and pretends he can read for such a time until his eyes grow dry, and the text blurs into even more of an indistinguishable messy lines than it was before. When he looks up at Erik, rubbing his eyes and covering a yawn with his fist, the prince is still sat in the small room across the space. His jacket has slipped from the back of the chair to the floor, but Erik’s not taken notice of it, too engrossed in whatever he’s reading. That favourite book of his, Charles wonders, the thicker one. Perhaps he’ll ask Erik to read it to him.

Or maybe not. Not if he can’t even stand to look at Charles.

Barefooted, Charles sticks to the carpets and rugs thrown over the stone as he slowly pads his way to Erik. He can feel the chill through their thread but it isn’t so bad, and besides it’s not too long a walk. Erik doesn’t notice he’s standing there until his shadow slants over the desk, cutting it in two, and Charles thinks that the way he freezes in his presence is infinitely worse than the cold under his feet.

Charles scoops up the coat from the ground. Woollen and thick, it warms in Charles’ hands quickly. He steps to Erik’s side, but it takes a pause for Erik to look up at him. From his vantage point Charles can see an illustration of a mermaid in the book he’s reading, tail long and white, coiling around itself, white hair cascading over shoulders and breasts and down to the dip of a navel. Funny, the mermaid almost looks like--

“Are you tired?” asks Erik then, his voice raspy from disuse. Charles’ gaze snaps up off the page.

“Yes,” voice equally as wrecked. He folds the coat over his arm. “Will you come to bed?”

Erik’s eyeing the coat like it’s done him some injustice or betrayal. “Soon,” he tells Charles, like a promise even though Charles knows that it isn’t. “Brush your teeth at the basin, first.”

And now Charles lies still, blending in with the sheets, hoping that if Erik can’t see him he’ll come to bed, eventually. 

Eventually comes after Charles has slipped and resurfaced with a jolt too many times to remember, and in those moments where he lies awake and waiting, he’s thought of every single little reason why Erik might keep him at the distance he does. He sucks him in, into white-capped and choppy waters, but when Charles swims too close he spits him back, pushing him up, away, to craggy rocks and sunburnt shores.

It all leaves Charles rather dislocated and heartsore.

He’s thought a hundred reasons -- masculinity, femininity -- but there’s nothing that sticks, nothing that makes sense. Charles realises, like a punch to his chest, that he’s not sure what else he can do to make Erik love him back.

Foxing sleep Charles follows Erik with his mind as the prince skirts the room, turning down the lamps and snuffing the candles with flicks of his fingers and wrist. There’s shuffling to Charles’ left, where he knows the changing partition and the basin stand in a corner, and Charles picks on the whispers of cotton, the clattering of buttons knocking together. The clasps of boots pop open with quiet clicks, the leather crumpling to the stone floor with a deflated thump, and then… Charles flushes down to his belly. He can hear the hisses of laces through eyelets, two quiet huffs of exertion, and then the fold of breeches being cast over the partition.

It’s too dark to see, the thick drapes hanging above the windows obscuring any light from the stars and moon, but Charles hears, feels. He imagines Erik’s orientating himself with the copper and brass around his room, beacons to bounce off of. He places Erik in his mind just near the partition, pulling himself into his sleeping tunic and washing his face at the basin.

Charles’ own face is smooth and soft. His chin is hairless, upper lip clean. He doubts Erik’s ever going to shave him again now. Maybe Erik will never look at him again, either.

Charles is half convinced Erik is going to heap some pillows and a throw into his arms and settle on the chaise (and from the way Erik has paused by the bed for a handful of minutes, contemplative, Erik must think that’s what he’s going to do, too) when he feels the edge of the duvet lift and settle, and Charles holds his breath. Erik makes a quiet noise of contentment as he sits and then lays, pulling the duvet up over him and curling into it.

His mind is a tangle of thoughts, knots of feelings and colours and words. _Charles._ He feels his name in Erik’s mind, like a weight, something constant, and it gives him a brief surge of hope that’s snuffed out when he sees the Tauw Princess in Erik’s mind, all blonde hair and heavy chest and everything that Charles doesn’t have.

Erik sleeps the way he works: clinically efficient, a straight back, no fidgeting. Charles relies on his breathing to determine where he is in sleep - shallow for drifting, slow puffs for when he’s under. 

Charles listens to him for a long time.

By now Charles’ eyes have adjusted to the dark enough to see Erik’s silhouette. His nose is a strong line, thinner than Charles’ own, and his lips are only just parted as he sighs his breaths. Charles can’t see his expression, but he imagines all the dark lines and circles that cut his face are smoothed away by the night, where no worries can find him.

Erik’s bed is much wider than the nests Charles is accustomed to, with their seaweed blankets and coral pillows; but even with the space between them Charles can feel his bodyheat like it’s a furnace. He wants to-- no. He can’t move, lest Erik rouses, lest he wake to find Charles on him and push him away, because Charles thinks the moment his itching hands find Erik’s solid body he won’t be able to pull back. In sleep, Erik is vulnerable, susceptible to Charles’ whim, and that doesn’t quite sound appropriate in Charles’ mind.

So he lies there, across the space, tingling hands stuffed under twitching thighs, and waits for sleep to capture him. But with all his dozing before, sleep is elusive, and he lies awake for what must be hours more until he can hear the cranking of the boiler groaning to life floors below. Beside him Erik dreams, Charles can feel his mind working in fragmented thoughts and subdued colours. He sees himself -- or at least, the idea of himself -- several times before Charles kicks off the heavy covers and rolls over to watch the prince.

 

With his eyes adjusted, and his own superior vision, even in the dark Charles can see Erik’s face by the scant slithers of light that sneak around the drapes. His head is slightly turned Charles’ way, as if he fell asleep watching him. Rolled over they aren’t so far apart now, and if Charles wanted to it would be so easy to reach out and…

He tucks his hands together, rubbing thumb over knuckle, trying to work out the tension, the need. It helps, but only so much, and not the way touching Erik would. Maybe that’s why he can’t sleep, this irritation just under his skin, and Charles wants to curse his biology but keeps his mouth a tightly pressed line instead. Dawn will break soon, and he’s so incredibly tired but so incredibly worked up.

Maybe, one touch, just one; and then he’ll stuff his hands beneath his pillow and force himself to sleep. It’s that gala Erik mentioned in the evening, it’ll be long before he can sleep again. One touch, to fill a need, silence his heart. It might be the last night he goes to bed with Erik, he realises. Maybe tomorrow, drunk on wine and girls Erik will tell him _sorry_ , nod across the hall, and melt the lock of his bedroom door encasing the princess’ knowing giggles and sharp, sweeping glances within. 

Everything in Charles surges and spikes in a throb that feels more like a punch, right under his sternum. She’s no where close but Charles can see her in his mind, pulling Erik’s chin to catch his gaze, tossing her sun-bright hair and eclipsing him with her shadow as she straddles his lap.

Charles has his hand on Erik’s arm before he even realises. He jolts to pull it away, to tear the contact apart, but can’t -- because the moment he feels Erik’s muscles and heat he melts, and touching him feels like breathing in air. It fills up everything in his chest, and blood surges through each vein and capillary.

Erik murmurs in his sleep, his dreams snapping in a new, dislocated direction. Charles freezes, flingers splayed over the curve of his shoulder, but then Erik settles once more, and Charles swallows.

He should pull away. Just one touch, and then he’ll sleep, that’s what Charles decided. But as Erik slips deeper Charles can’t control the way his hand slides across his collar, pads of his fingers brushing flushed skin, then down over his ribs. Erik rolls into the touch slightly, angled oddly but still unconscious, and Charles bites his lip and holds his breath and shuts his eyes at the pleasant ache that chases up his arm.

Charles shifts closer, so close that now he has to crook his arm at the elbow to touch him. The feather light touches sweeping down Erik’s side, across his flat stomach, tracing the lines of his muscles fill parts of Charles he hadn’t realised were empty til now, but quickly it becomes _not enough,_ and the tingling, pins-and-needles stinging under his skin resurfaces.

 _Charles._ The thread of telepathy running through Erik’s mind catches onto a dream, and everything but Charles’ heart freezes when he hears his own name there, echoey and distant, an impression of him coloured by something warm and tight that Charles recognises. He remembers feeling that emotion, remembers finding it in Erik, when they were together before in the bathroom--

He presses his hand just a fraction firmer against Erik’s belly. The tightness grows; he feels it through Erik. He remembers last night’s dream, the bath - Erik’s fingers beneath his fins rubbing him into a breathless, insatiable heat - doesn’t think as he slips even closer, so close he can feel Erik’s warm wet breaths against his chin, slips his hand below the duvet. 

He knows what an erection is - and what an awkward, stunted conversation that had been, more than a week ago in the bathroom with Charles staring down at his fresh legs and Erik staring hard at the tiles. He knows he shouldn’t do this; Erik doesn’t belong to him. Erik doesn’t love him. 

But he’s tired, tired of princesses and taking steps only to have Erik pull the rug from beneath him. He’s tired of the emptiness Erik leaves in him when he turns away, when he keeps his distance. He doesn’t love Princess Magda, but he has to, and so if he’ll never have Erik anyway he may as well _try._  

In the dark Charles can’t see the way Erik’s leggings are tented but he can feel his mind calling to him, the heat beneath his skin tangible, tingling, itching for relief of a different kind. 

Charles could play ignorant, oblivious; say he was just learning human bodies, say Erik’s mind wanted him to touch there, which isn’t a full lie at all really. But Charles moves close enough that he could kiss Erik with just a small turn of his chin, the flat of his palm presses below Erik’s navel and he hears the prince huff in his sleep. Heart beating hard, fingers almost shaking in equal parts fear and exhilaration and _something else,_ a tightness of his own coiling in his belly; Charles rubs a small circle over cotton and skin and muscle, relishes in the heat of Erik’s body, drinks in the way his dreaming mind sifts through sensations. His fingers trace low enough for his knuckles to brush a hot bulge, but Charles feigns surprise, pretends he doesn’t know what Erik’s thinking in his sleep.

Erik wants this so much he covets it even when he’s unconscious. Then Charles will give him this, in the small hours between the stars and the sun and filled with bird calls and boilers creaking. Charles chirps quietly to himself, can’t help himself, and his fingers slip beneath the elastic of Erik’s leggings and brush the coarse thatch of hairs hidden below.

And then he takes Erik’s cock in hand, hot and thick, and sighs against the pillow.

He’s only half-hard, but feeling Erik’s weight in his palm is making him warm everywhere all the same. Now that he’s touching Erik here of all places he’s not sure what to do, Erik’s mind cutting the cinema of his dreams and pulsing with soft colours. He’s calming already, and Charles hasn’t even done much at all. He thinks of what he likes, of how he likes to be touched, and slowly moves his fingers in a light massage. Erik keens softly in his sleep, angling his face so suddenly they almost kiss on accident, and Charles has to pull back to avoid the line of his chin.

What if he wakes up? He already feels dirty doing this, but Erik’s mind had sung so pretty and his body is so unbelievably warm. If he wakes up, though, Charles is sure those excuses will mean little.

He can feel his own arousal heavy in his belly, can feel his own erection pushing at the thin nightdress. He shouldn’t be doing this. Mermaids… his kind don’t do this. Only for babies, not for pleasure, but humans seem so much more liberal, open. Except for Erik, who keeps himself so locked up and so hidden away, like if he draws himself in tight people will walk past without a second glance.

Charles twists his hand and Erik gasps and murmurs softly by his cheek, so Charles jerks it again, and slowly comes to realise a pattern. He curls his fingers around Erik’s erection, seeking out his face in the dim, waiting for his eyes to snap open startled; but they don’t, and Charles lazily strokes him until his cock is flushed and completely hard in Charles’ grip. There’s a wetness at the tip that Charles collects with his fingers and rubs over the skin, although it’s not very much and does a poor job at lubricating. In Erik’s mind, though, it’s perfect, and Charles uses his conscious like a guideline. He rolls his wrist, and Erik’s mind flares a colour, and with every movement and every soft sound Charles’ confidence is bumped up a notch.

It’s wrong and he knows it. He shouldn’t be doing this, touching Erik here, but just as he’s about to pull away and roll over and force himself to sleep and forget this happened, Erik moans, and it catches Charles’ distant attention and holds it locked. It’s only a soft sound, slipping through parted lips, but in the quiet filled with only sighs it’s so loud Charles feels himself flush across his cheeks. Erik’s cock is hot with blood, engorged within Charles’ grip, and he gives another firm stroke and pulls another quiet moan from Erik’s throat. 

Erik shivers, Charles swallows, wide eyed with his lip caught in his teeth. His leg finds itself hooking over Erik’s thigh, free hand fixed on Erik’s shoulder. He’s going too far. He can feel Erik begin to twitch in sleep, can see his brow furrowing, and his moans are quick and breathy painting Charles’ cheek. He’s going too far, he can’t be this possessive, protective of Erik, because tomorrow night Erik will take the princess to his bed and that’ll be it--

Charles is so focused on his thoughts that he completely misses all the warning signals signing Erik’s waking. He misses the way his moans turn to pants, and he misses the light gasp sucked between his teeth. What he doesn’t miss, however, this close to the prince, is the way his eyes fly open and he stares at Charles incredulously through the dim. 

His hand, his heart, everything freezes, and Charles counts the seconds that fall into their startled silence. Erik’s looking at him like he isn’t real. Like he’s not really there, but a shimmer of hope still lights his eyes all the same. Erik licks his lips, dry from his rasping breaths, and Charles is almost too scared to move in case he breaks this moment.

But he does, pulling his leg back from where it’s hiked over Erik’s side, and it does shatter the stillness between them; but only because Erik’s hand shoots out and grips his thigh. The pad of his thumb sweeps a broad arch over his muscle and scarred skin, once and then twice, and Charles mimics the movement with his own thumb, over the hot flesh of Erik’s cock.

And then Erik tilts his head forward and gasps, and it sounds so loud and so desperate in the quiet. Charles pulls his hand away like he’s hurt, jerking back in Erik’s grip, but then Erik whispers something, from his mind and mouth, and Charles freezes all over again.

“Don’t stop,” he hisses, eyes shut. “Please don’t stop.”

It’s the still hours of the night, the desperation of the tension that’s been between them ever since the rockpools; it’s anything but Charles’ own fault. “Do you want this?” he asks quietly, voice alien to his own ears. He can hear the rustle of Erik’s nod, but doesn’t move until the prince mutters a hard-edged _yes._

So tentatively, carefully, as if attempting to calm an animal, Charles traces his fingers down Erik’s chest, over his belly, and hooks them into the waistband of Erik’s leggings. When his palm grips his erection Erik whines in his ear, lips so close he could just turn his head and slot the two of them together perfectly, completely. 

But then Erik is whispering against his cheek, and the hand on Charles’ thigh has started to squeeze and pull. It’s a strange angle but Charles makes it work, rubbing his hand over any part of Erik he can grip, drawing out moans and whimpers with each stroke.

“This isn’t real,” he hears Erik whisper, but he says nothing, doesn’t comment. “This can’t be real.”

It doesn’t take long for him to come, and Charles can feel his orgasm at the back of his mind, feels the tightness in his belly and the overwhelming inevitability of falling into a few blissful seconds of whited pleasure like it’s his own. Erik buries his face into Charles’ neck as he moans, his fingers shaking on Charles’ thigh, catching a sliver of hem from the nightdress and pulling it taut.

His semen is hot across his fingers, threads of pearly fluid that Charles can’t seen in the dark but the sensation is made that much clearer. It’s like his entire hand is alight with tingles, his brain a constant stream of, _oh, I did this, I made Erik do this, not her,_ and he’s overwhelmed by the sheer heaviness of Erik’s satiated calm that it’s all he can think for a little while. Erik heaves his breaths beside him, eyes screwed shut and mouth open slightly, Charles can only tell by the way he sighs and groans. Should he take his hand away? Should he roll over and pretend his fingers aren’t burning and all the muscles between the shells of his hips aren’t a tight knot?

Erik moves for him, taking his hand in his own and wiping the come from each digit off on his night shirt. Then he sits a little to pull it over his head and tosses it to the ground, and when he falls back against the pillows the tension is back and more stifling than it ever was before.

It takes Charles a long while to speak. “I will go back to my bed,” is what he eventually says, pushing himself to sit, half wondering if maybe Erik fell back asleep and isn’t there to hear him. But no, no, he’s awake, and in a snap his mind is that whirling machine of cogs working too fast to create thoughts too chaotic to untangle. 

 

 

But a word gets out, just one at first, and each pound of Charles’ heart feels like he’s being struck between the ribs. “Stay,” Erik begs, and his hands are seeking Charles’, palms running over his thigh and accidentally brushing his own slight erection in their search. “Stay with me.” An arm snakes itself around Charles’ waist, and Erik hoists him close like a doll, with such a sudden strength it makes Charles curious.

“All right,” Charles concedes, secretly relieved. He curls himself around Erik, burrowing into his body and his mind. He thinks it’s a dream, that it wasn’t real, that Charles could never do that. 

But he did. Charles did, and now Erik holds him like he’s made of smoke.

It isn’t long before Erik’s drowsiness proves contagious, and Charles finally lets a yawn and loops his arm over Erik’s side. He measures each steady breath by the movement of his forearm, counting each rise and fall as his eyes slip shut and his breaths even. He doesn’t know whether or not Erik’s awake, but regardless he noses himself under the prince’s chin, lips poised over the flutter of his pulse.

With the boilers below, and with Erik’s mind slow and easy like the tide licking up sand, Charles is lulled to sleep, hand tingling and heart warm. 

*

Erik isn’t there when Charles wakes.

The sun warms the spot he should fill, the spot he curled into Charles all through the remainder of the night, but it’s not Erik, not his body. 

Charles finds Raven on the chaise, watching him across the room with a wariness that makes him want to recoil. Instead he clenches a fist and levels his gaze back at her. Eventually, she speaks. “He’s preparing for tonight, that’s all. You don’t need to worry so much.”

Erik left him. Maybe it was a dream after all. “Will he be back?”

Raven shrugs. Can she tell? She’s looking at him like she knows what he did. “I don’t think it would be advisable for him to return.”

Charles scoffs, clicking in irritation and pushing himself from the bed onto unsteady legs. “Not for me,” Charles agrees, ignoring his reflection in the dresser mirror and stalking towards the tray of food on the table at the end of the bed. “I am just a mermaid. I am not special.”

Now Raven hums, rubbing her chin. She’s dressed in her formal knight’s robes with a brown leather baldric over one shoulder, sword in its scabbard. “On the contrary, I think you could be the answer to all this mess.” Whatever that means. Charles picks apart the flaky pastry he finds beneath the cloche, really looking for something to tear his frustration apart with that isn’t himself, or Raven.

He woke calm, peaceful. His hands are still tingling nicely from having so much of Erik to touch, from not having to hold himself back. He shouldn’t feel like this, and it’s not Raven’s fault.

“I’m taking you to Logan,” she continues when Charles doesn’t respond. “We need to get you a dress before tonight. It’s late morning so be quick.”

He’s suddenly very, inexplicably guilty about the corset, and what remains of it stuffed in Erik’s closet. “Do I have to?”

When Raven stands her sword swings at her side. She walks over to the dresser where Charles’ boxes are piled atop it. “Erik was rather insistent on it.”

Because he wants Charles out of the castle, so he doesn’t ruin his time with the princess again. Charles swallows but the pastry doesn’t fill him up.

Raven helps him into the white dress today, showing him the stockings, lacing the bodice - not at all as tight as the corset had been, for which Charles is grateful and Raven is embarrassed. When he slips the white gloves on he hopes Raven doesn’t see the way he blushes. He’d not seen Erik’s come marking his fingers, but he can imagine it, and the phantom warmth is easy to conjure.

A hat and heels, Raven looks Charles over once more. “Are you sure you don’t want a suit?” she asks. Charles shakes his head no.

“Dresses are prettier,” he explains, and it’s not exactly a full lie but Raven leaves it at that.

They take a steam-powered carriage, which Charles hasn’t ridden in before. Its conductor is a small lady dressed in a copper-hemmed blazer, who speaks in short quips to Raven in a language Charles doesn’t understand much of at all. The wheels climb from the grooves of the cobblestone and rattle the shiny wooden box, and Charles holds his hat to keep it from tumbling off down to the footwell. No wonder Erik prefers the tram; that, or it’s all the metal encasing him safely.

Although, the taxi is quicker than the tram. Raven empties her purse of a few thick round coins -- Charles owned similar in his grotto down in the water, stolen little treasures he’d found around the docks and sand-swallowed shipwrecks -- and then takes his hand to lead him out.

They’re on the curb of the main street, which isn’t so congested with mid day approaching and the lunch stalls pulling back the folds of their tarpaulins. Speciality shops for shoes and hats for men and women line one side of the boulevard while trees guard the other, fencing the beach. Charles can see the flat of the water glinting in the sun, grand ships of shiny black and brown wood stippling the sea and rendered smaller than Charles’ thumbnail at this distance. The salt is a familiar taste on the back of his tongue. “Come on,” Raven encourages, a little stiffly, and she tugs on his hand and walks him through the petering crowd.

While the men look at him strangely the women smile fondly, as if he is their child and he’s just said something extraordinarily precocious. It makes him flush so he keeps his eyes downcast and watches the heels of Raven’s flat-soled boots. He looks up in time to see the glistening silver boutique, the tall dark woman with hair the colour of lightning within, and then Charles recognises the quaint sliver of a shop nestled beside it. Raven opens the door and pushes him through, closing it behind her and locking it.

He’s about to turn and ask her what she’s doing, this is Mr Howlett’s shop, when he notices the tailor standing over between the counter and the workroom door. “Took you long enough,” he grouses, but he’s talking to Raven; Charles can tell by the way she sighs loudly behind him.

It’s then that Charles realises they’re not alone. How he managed to overlook Mr McCoy who shrouds himself of the shadow of the corner, wearing a button down that looks like it’s about to burst under his work apron, he doesn’t know, or the blonde guard stationed against the wall next to him, frown heavier than his armour.

“We’re here now,” Raven says in lieu of an apology. “Let’s just hurry this up before Erik notices he’s gone. 

Charles bristles, remembering the locked door, eyeing McCoy’s black claws, flicking a glance to Summers to his right. “What’s going on?” he asks slowly, throat tight with his heart feeling like it’s lodged in it. Summers sighs wearily, like this anywhere but where he’d want to be, and Charles feels a flare of annoyance with the knight.

“Take it easy,” grunts Logan, cocking his chin and nodding at the door behind him. “Back here.”

The room is wider than Charles remembers, racks pushed against the walls and creating a clearing for the group to stand in. Charles wants to ask for a chair to get off these heels, still doesn’t understand what’s going on, but then Raven takes his hand like she knows and she’s speaking.

“We think we’ve figured a solution to the mess with Shaw,” she begins, voice carrying around the room. “Shaw is a power-hungry genocidal madman, who will do nothing more but squander Genosha’s resources for his own personal gain. We can’t let him come into power; he already has too much at his status. Which is why Erik is marrying the princess.”

Charles nods slowly, trying to keep up. Summers continues, and it’s the first time Charles has heard him speak more than three words. His voice is a lot deeper than he’d initially imagined. “But that doesn’t solve the culling of the mermaids or their retaliation against our sailors. We need peace in the oceans. Erik could put an order in place but Shaw’s spent years riling up the fishermen and now they’re blooded. We need something stronger than a law; something infallible, familial. A bond.”

Now McCoy steps forward, adjusting his spectacles with a curved talon. “When Prince Lehnsherr had me locate a book specifying the history and behaviours of the merfolk, I also found a similar copy for myself.” Here he walks over to one of Logan’s work desks, and he pages through a thick old book lying there. “I’ve studied it,” he continues when he finds his subject, tapping a claw on the paper, “And I think I understand the, ah, monarchy, I suppose, that your kind live under.”

“Your _Q’ian,_ ” Raven substitutes when she catches Charles frowning. “She rules over the seas, and when a mermaid with similar or even stronger powers manifests, she chooses them to succeed her, tutoring them and guiding them.” 

“That was you, wasn’t it, Charles?” McCoy asks softly. “You were the one she chose, the _Q’ian’ee._ The heir to the ocean.”

Logan claps his hand down on Charles’ shoulder. “And here in our world, bub, that sounds an awful lot like being a prince.”

Charles isn’t sure he’s following correctly, he can’t be, because his heart is singing in excitement that his mind won’t let him revel in. He swallows, and speaks slowly. “But I was banished. I am no longer the _Q’ian’ee._ ”

“Banishment doesn’t change how powerful you are,” continues McCoy. “I read about the effect of finding one’s soulmate. It only increases power, influence. Even without guidance, your strength is undeniable, even to those of your kind who despise you.”  
  
It shouldn’t make sense; a human shouldn’t know more about mermaids than Charles. But everything clicks, fits. He remembers how, when he was a child, he’d see his queen in her reefs and coral gardens and bow his head, her power a heady weight in his mind and his chest. “But why does it matter that I am a prince?”

Silence settles over the group, like they’re deciding who is going to speak, as if Charles can’t already feel what’s in their minds. Raven breaks it. “If you married Erik it would make him king of Genosha, and in turn a new alliance would be formed protecting your people, ending this silly feud.”

Charles’ mouth is dry. Hearing the words said, tangible in the air, feeling how they hit him when spoken, he has to swallow before he speaks. The words he says hold no conviction. “But Erik doesn’t love men.”  
  
Hank hums. Summers scoffs. Raven says, softly, “Oh, Charles,” and Logan rolls his eyes.

“And I’ve metal for bones,” he grunts, and Charles peers at him under a confused frown. “Trust me, there’s a reason Erik’s stayed single this long.”

McCoy collects his book and offers Charles a soft smile that still reaches him through the thatch of his furry face. “Humans rarely marry for love,” he says, and Charles doesn’t miss the way Hank glances up at Raven over his shoulder, “So if he got that… Erik would be the luckiest human alive, I think.”

There’s a tense moment in which Raven and Hank look at each other for a moment too long before Hank nods and murmurs about the store and leaves. The scent of worn old pages and sea salt carries with him as he bulks past. The rush and fall of colours and emotion - anticipation, and then poorly-guarded disappointment, bitterness - pulses from Raven so fiercely it makes Charles dizzy for a beat, but then she’s turned back to Howlett, got her hand on Charles’ shoulder, and by the time the doorbell in the other room has finished tinkling Raven is speaking, her voice reedy, but Charles knows not to point it out.

“You can’t let Erik marry that princess. Erik’s stubborn, but he’s more in love with you than his pride. Tonight at the gala, you tell him you love him just as much.” Charles has barely a moment to speak let alone process the words before she’s saying, “Now, you’re going to need a dress, and we need an alibi lest our prince starts looking for you.”

Summers takes it as his cue to leave, nodding to Logan, turning to Charles. His stern eyes hold Charles frozen, but then he dips his head in bow, two fingers pressed at the shoulder socket closest to his heart. Charles swallows; it’s the bow Raven gives Erik.

When Logan turns to pull out a rack of gowns, Charles finds Raven looking down at him. “Erik did not know you were bringing me here.” 

“Erik didn’t know that the others would be here,” she replies dryly. “Ever since he was a child, his duties have been hammered into him; they shaped him, and what once was red-hot, malleable metal is now a will that’s set.” 

“His duties; to put his kingdom first. To marry a princess,” Charles realises. “But Erik doesn’t love women.”

In the corner, hugging a mannequin, is a white gown with white glittering jewels sewn in patterns on bodice. The skirt reaches the floor, fanning out, like an upside-down glass. The shrouding lace sweeping around the silk reminds him of the bubbles around his tail. The veil is something of golden ribbon and a lace so white it makes him think of stars. Charles swallows.

“He can’t,” Raven agrees, and her scales crinkle and shimmer as she smiles. “So he won’t let himself love you. He couldn’t ever have you, it’d hurt too much, or he thinks that he doesn’t deserve you.”

Every time Erik pulled away, caught himself looking too long and glared elsewhere; it all comes back, caped by cognizance. “For a month, he….”

Logan’s walking over with the rack but Raven nods. “I’ve known Erik since we were children, and never before has he looked as he does when I’ve seen him with you. He doesn’t look at Princess Magda the way he looks at you.”

*

Raven doesn’t escort him back inside the palace; Armando is waiting at the gate with a pleasant smile. If he knows about the meeting in Logan’s store -- which he undoubtedly does -- he doesn’t say anything. He nods to Raven, who waves from in front of the taxi before folding herself back into the boxy carriage. Charles doesn’t have to skim her to know she’s going; he imagines restaurants, the theatre, apartments and bookstores.

Armando walks him to Erik’s chambers, says, “I suppose Raven will be back to help you dress for the gala, will you be alright til then?” and Charles nods silently, too distracted by the way Armando is looking at him in stolen glances to respond. Armando is kind, but Charles can’t help being only slightly envious of him and so that makes him feel awkward and guilty. When the knight leaves Charles lets a sigh, and begins to pull apart his costume. The hat settles on the edge of the dresser mirror, shoes nestled underneath, and then light fingers pull light strings loose and he shucks the white dress over the partition. 

There’s a moment where Charles allows himself a pause to watch his reflection in the mirror. He’s thinner than he used to be, the folds and creases of muscle under his skin no longer as stark and defined as they used to be. He’s hairier too, now, to his chagrin, and there’s probably little point to shaving; perhaps he’ll let his stubble grow, just like the distance between him and Erik.

No, he can’t think like that. Raven, Logan, Hank and Alex, they all said…

Charles looks at his hands. Spreads his fingers like sea stars, misses the slight, translucent webbing down between his knuckles. But they’re hands that touched Erik, held him, last night. Perhaps it was all a dream.

The stockings roll into thick bands around his ankles, and instead he encases his legs with light brown breeches that he finds deep in Erik’s closet. A work shirt that’s creamy with age presses his hair flat, then leaves it unruly as he pulls it on; his arms he loops into the long sleeves, tightening the cuffs with buttons. They’re Erik’s, by scent and size Charles can be sure. He looks at himself, barefooted, bare-faced, and he looks plain. The leggings wrap his thighs and offer no freedom like the dresses do. The work shirt only accentuates his thin wrists, make his fingers look longer and bonier.

But Erik loves him, like this, like he should love the princess. Loves him in a dress or three-piece or a tail. It all feels… too surreal. His mind grows heavy when he plays back Raven’s words.

He pulls on socks and boots, combs shaking fingers through his soft, curly hair and allows himself one last glance in the mirror before setting out into the corridor, passing the elevator and instead skipping down flight after flight of stairs until he comes to the main foyer, where servants carry garlands and statues and chairs through to the ballroom, which is nestled at the end of a hallway to the east. He glimpses its glimmering golden floors and ceilings, domed and high and painted like a kingdom above the clouds. Too many people are bustling around, shouting to one another, working quickly as mid-afternoon approaches.

The ballroom will be his, Charles thinks as he walks past. Erik would teach him to dance at any hour he wished. They would spend evenings and nights tucked away, dancing in their socks if their shoes grow too tight.

Each step Charles takes seems to push the fog away, hammer the notion down into him like a nail into wood. Erik loves him. He could marry Erik. A diplomatic union, beneficial to humans and merpeople alike; that is of course how it would be dressed to the public. But between the two of them, it would be a marriage for love.

The stairwell banister is smooth beneath his palm. This will be his, too.

The servants watch him as he hurries, grinning and breathless, tracing the frames of the portraits lining the corridor. He doesn’t mind they look at him strangely, Charles doubts they even know who he is. But that would change.

The atrium is rather empty for this time in the afternoon, but Charles realises the ladies of the court are readying themselves for the ball. Where there’s usually chatter, and the singing of the gramophone, and the ambient clinking of china and glass there’s only the chimes ringing from the wind, the sound of water trickling into the impluvium. It’s peaceful, and Charles stands, closes his eyes and smiles.

When he and Erik are married, they’ll take walks through the gardens every evening, at around the time when the sky is stuck between pink and orange and the sun makes the limestone shimmer. Past the flowerbeds, following the white-pebbled path, and they’d click and crunch beneath their lazy, ambling steps. They’d pass the fountain, but Charles would tug Erik’s arm and crouch to watch the small frogs with their sticky feet, sitting on the water-flowers. Erik would smile and oblige him, with his fingers in Charles’ hair.

And then they’d go to the secret balcony, tucked away on the eastern side of the gardens, shielded by the white willow flowers, privately watching over their worlds. He’d sit on the stone support with his knee hooked over a thigh, Erik would hold him steady by his hips and the silver of his jewellery, bangles and necklaces and rings like the ones he wore by the rock pools those weeks ago. Erik’s thumbs would rub in small arcs in the curve between his hips and waist, and the touch would light him up and make him crackle like fire.

Charles pushes the white strings of flowers aside to step to the balcony now, and with the shift the petals fall like snow around him, catching in the flicks of his hair. This will be their place, will be the line between their kingdoms, perfumed by the sea and the flowers, with the sound of the birds and the bugs and the waves all meeting together.

It would all belong to them. He’d share this life on the land with Erik, and then he’d go to the fisheries and smiths and have an oxygen filter made, and he could show Erik his world.

If they married, he could take Erik down to the breeding pools and mate with him properly.

Too lost in his fantasies Charles doesn’t hear the voices behind him til it’s too late, and he spins around, back to the stone, watching as the prince parts the flower curtains with his arm to allow Princess Magda onto the ledge. Erik’s still talking to her when she stops with a gasp, eyes lighting on Charles. Then Erik looks up and everything else stops, too.

The confidence he held a moment ago dissipates on the sea-misted breeze, and Charles swallows, feeling incredibly small and incredibly vulnerable where he stands. He feels like he’s the intruder on _their_ moment, and perhaps he is, because the princess is standing awfully close to Erik and a flare of hurt jealousy consumes every little bit of hope in Charles like fire over parchment. It leaves a taste like ashes on the back of his tongue.

But then he looks at Erik, and he forgives him, Charles knows that he always would, and Erik is staring at him with his lips slightly parted and eyes dark and wide, unabashedly falling down his body and drinking in the sight of him. He must recognise the clothes Charles wears as his own, because he mind permeates a single, protective sense of _mine,_ a single need to protect, and it burns in Charles too when he sees the way the princess reaches to Erik.

Charles’ left hand begins to tingle, warm beneath the skin. Charles clears his throat. “Excuse me, Princess.” He thinks that’s the right thing to say. When Erik hears his voice he heaves a shaky sigh, and Charles can see the way he trembles slightly to keep himself from doing anything untoward.

Like rushing over in three long strides and picking Charles up by his thighs and kissing him so hard neither can breathe.

“Prince Erik,” continues Charles, and the prince’s thoughts turn a shade darker, a weight heavier, pressing down from Charles’ neck down his spine and settling between his hips.

The gala tonight - he’ll have Erik at the gala tonight. He can tell him he loves him - truly loves him, has and always will - and he’ll tell him to forget the princess and marry him instead, he’ll kiss him like he wants to be kissed, touch him like he needs to be touched, and take him, make him better, fix all the pieces of him that were shattered when he was broken in. He’ll love Erik like he deserves to be loved.

After the gala. Charles has waited this long. He nods to the both of them before he steps briskly from the broken white stone to the grass, and as he passes Erik, who stands as still as the trees around them, he brushes his fingers against his thigh, steps in close to catch his scent, feel the heat off his body, and presses a promise into his mind, a plea. _Wait for me; don’t kiss her._

* * *

 

 


	7. VII

The palace is practically euphoric. Everywhere Charles looks there are humans smiling, grinning, laughing and falling into one another. The women look like desserts in their dresses -- big puffs of lace and silk all brightly dyed and dextrously pulled together with gold-spun threads -- and they step airily down the corridors in their shiny heeled shoes.

Every one of them has her hair styled differently; pulled off the face, curtains of curls over ears and shifting to reveal pearl studs clipped to the lobe. One is wearing some kind of piled fashion. Charles brings a quick hand up to his own hair, pulls his gloved fingers through the curls that bounce over one ear, traces the pins that pull them back behind the other. He has a small blue flower clipped there, too. At least he has that.

All these women are so beautiful and making him so envious, and Charles hasn’t even seen the ballroom yet.

“Stop it,” hisses Raven beside him. “Being beautiful means keeping very, very still.”

She has her arm looped with his. She’s not wearing a dress, but another uniform more decorated and bright than what she normally wears. Green and gold colours of Genosha -- for show, Charles concludes.

The faraway swell of strings grows louder with every step they take, the chorus of tittering and chattering and clinking glasses rising to grate a little on Charles’ already frayed nerves. He’d had all the confidence to brush past Erik on the balcony, had done so with his head held high, but now the adrenaline has drained. Now, doubt has started to creep from the shadows in his mind, and it clings to every thought. What if Erik won’t have him? What if Erik will choose the princess after all?

Even knowing what Raven and the others had said, even remembering how Erik had melted into him the night prior doesn’t do much to dissuade Charles’ anxiety. He wrings his fingers for something to do, and Raven sighs again.

“Stop with the fidgeting. It is unbecoming.”

She herself was a wreck of anxiety only the day before but Charles thinks she’s back to normal now; crass, stern, but not impatient. Not rude. Caring. She came back from the city half an hour past sundown. She found him in his room, where he’d transferred his gown for tonight lest Erik himself walk in to change and find him there, which Charles... wasn't sure he was ready for.

She’d been gentle with this new corset (which Logan had only handed over after a tense moment of staring at Charles and then deciding that he didn’t want to know), easy with his makeup. His eyelashes are long and inky, curled by some strange metal device he really didn’t like the look of. A light, silver necklace settles over his collar, pendant falling down to nestle between the small pouches of fat and muscle pushed together by the coset.

He knows he looks beautiful. Alluring. He allows himself to feel proud of the way he carries himself, how the skirt and its petticoat float around him and hardly shift with each step.

But Raven hadn’t shaved him. He brings a hand to cover his cheek, almost on instinct; hopes that no one will see. Hopes it'll be dim enough that Erik won’t see.

They sidle into the elevator. Charles inspects himself in the glossy brass-plated walls out of a habit he didn’t know he had, but doesn’t look too long incase he starts to fret and work himself up. There’s a serving boy, too, standing by the levers, staring ahead. Charles can’t help but wonder if he thinks him strange; doesn’t brush his mind just in case.

It’s quiet in their small box of metal, shielded from the raucousness of the party as it spreads from the heart of the castle to fill the corridors. Charles has only a moment to relish in it, this still second where he can’t stand before Erik and try to choose his words, and yet can’t avoid him, a moment that’s out of his control. Calm before the storm.

Then, a chime rings, heels click _one-two_ across shiny metal steel, the grates sweep open; and Charles is hit by the cacophony of minds and music alike, blinded by the rainbows of dresses and banners, the piercing glints of silver and gold jewellery that shine in the light of the chandeliers. Men and women are dancing, their skirts and coattails chasing them like streams of bubbles, ruffles opening like flowers, swaying like corals in an easy current.

Raven holds his arm as they wade in through the open doors, past the band against the side wall, around all kinds of important people. There must be princes and princesses and kings and queens, politicians, prime ministers all gathered here for this. It must have been planned for months; and Erik never said much at all. Like he didn't care for it. Charles doesn’t know if he should feel excluded or relieved.

But he can’t wonder on it much for long, because Raven is still leading him deeper and deeper into the ballroom and he has to focus on stepping around trains and ruffles and lacey hems, has to keep his head high, eyes open. There’s hundreds of humans here, all drunk and their minds loud. The moment Charles slips a tendril of his telepathy out to find Erik he recoils, stepping close to Raven even as if avoiding a blow. It’s too much to process, to listen to; but he swallows, and breathes slowly. He _will_ find Erik. If Erik can’t hear him now, at least he heard him before, on the balcony. 

He brings his gloved fingers to his lips, remembering the lipstick there just in time, and smooths over his powdered cheeks. He hopes the stubble hasn’t grown dark enough this quickly. Charles hopes that if he kisses Erik tonight, Erik won’t notice it.

Knights line the wall in their duty-robes, swords in scabbards and eyes staring ahead. Across the room, Charles spies Armando standing by the towering glass doors, ocean-side. He gives Charles a nod and a smile, perhaps an impression of good luck if Charles had the power to feel it, but Charles tries to use his presence as an anchor; calms because of it. Armando is only across the way, Alex perhaps here somewhere, too, and of course Raven, leading him around the room, skirting the dancefloor where couples twirl. Charles looks for gold curls, broad shoulders and trim waists and thin hands intertwined.

Once settled at a table Raven seeks refreshments, and her absence brings a prickling feeling of being watched. He tries not to look over his shoulder too often, tries to sit still with his back straight and lips smiling, like the other women he spies on the other tables, like he’s proper. But secretly, he hopes it’s Erik watching him.

Raven returns with crystal glasses between her gloved fingers, he chats to her idly -- digging around for information on Hank, whom she disregards with a wave of her hand and a steady draw from her glass -- but the feeling of eyes on him never leaves. With the crowd as loud as it is a headache is already spidering behind his forehead, and without his telepathy he feels trapped. But he talks to Raven, ignores the itching under his skin, watches her drink. 

It goes on for a half of an hour, and then the lights dim. Charles’ feet are pinched in the heels but he stands when the others do, looks to the front of the ballroom where four thrones are lined along a platform. An entourage of guardstrek across it, front and back, and between them--

Charles sees King Jakob first, and it’s strange how clearly he remembers his voice though he’s not seen the king or the queen for days. He blushes when his eyes flick to Edie, and his hands burn where he’s got them held behind his back. Last night, he’d… her son…

“...in honour of Princess Magdaline of the Sovereignty of Tauw.” 

Charles looks to the right. Magda is clipped into a dress as gold as her curls, a brocade across her shoulders shining with crystals. Her waist is slimmer than Charles’, her smile brighter, teeth straighter. Charles grinds his, folds his fingers into a fist at his side, and when he sees Erik beside her his nose begins to sting.

Raven leans across him, mutters something, but he can’t hear her and he doesn’t hear whatever announcement the human on stage has said, either.

They sit in their thrones, the fourth one obviously new; the fourth one not made for him. 

“...delighted to announce her engagement to Prince Erik Magnus of the Kingdom of Genosha…”

The humans around him are clapping and cheering. Charles tries to swallow, but he can’t.

Raven won’t look at him. She’s staring at Erik in incredulous anger, in shock. Charles shakes her arm, wets his lips, the ballroom is echoing cheers and Magda is still smiling.“What happened?” His voice sounds like a scratch across satin.

The wedding will be next season. Charles doesn’t understand. Erik is meant to be marrying him.

He shakes Raven harder, holds her arm so tight four white dots blossom beneath her blue skin when he lets go. “What _happened_?” 

Finally, not looking at him, not looking anywhere, she whispers back, “I don’t know.”

The eyes are back on him, and he hurts like he’s going to be sick. He realises when the blue of his skirt turns dark in streaks that he’s crying, that he can’t hold it in anymore, and a sob crawls up his throat and spills out. He’s going to be sick. Erik isn’t marrying him. Erik's marrying Magda. Charles needs to get out.

Raven is yelling at him as Charles pushes through the crowd but he ignores her and his tears fall hot. He holds his hand across his mouth to keep from crying out, holding it there like it’ll hold it all inside, but against his better judgment he throws a glance to the platform and Erik is staring straight at him, suddenly standing despite his mother’s grip on his arm, and that’s when it all gets too much and all the splinterling cracks in Charles’ heart drive him to shatter, and another sob crawls out, and then another and another. 

He pushes past a man in a yellow coat, and a strange kind of helmet on his head, but Charles doesn’t have it in him to apologise.

When he makes it to the corridor he runs.The party is muffled, but inescapable. The wedding will be inescapable, this tiny island like a cage. Even if he had money he doesn’t know how the zeppelins work, where the station is, how to get there. The tram schedule, he knows the routes, he's been on the tram enough times-- oh, but he can’t even _read_ without Erik, and Charles’ chest is so tight he can’t breathe, corset crippling and heart like lead. 

He’ll have to return to the sea. Maybe, if he swims fast enough, he won’t be caught. He'd have to leave everything behind.

Again.  
  
Logan, Alex, Hank-- they put stupid ideas in his head. He let himself think he could for once get what he wanted. They made him think he wasn’t alone.

The parlour is eery when it’s empty, the solar-lamps burning low in the corridors by the windows and throwing looming shadows in the corners, creeping across the polished marble floor. The wicker chairs are tucked beneath the stained-glass tables, still like they’d never been sat in. The steady trickle of water into the impluvium is the only sound that echoes alongside the slow click of Charles’ heels, til Charles comes to the large, intricate sliding doors. The sound is grating as Charles heaves it open, but some vicious part of him relishes the drag of wood against runner, of the way it slams into the bracket. He wants to break something. He wants to hurt something how Erik hurt him. The sound follows him as he steps out into the gardens. 

How foolish of him to think he’d have this, to think he’d have Erik. How foolish of him to think that Erik might have _listened_ to him, might have waited just a night.

His heels sink into the grass, leaving it pocked, and it’s only satisfying to ruin something so immaculate for a moment; guilt sinks into him like cold oil. He kicks the shoes off, doesn’t care about the damp soil staining his stockings. Logan will never see him again to scold him.   
  
_Charles--_  

The lantern’s light wanes beneath the bright full moon, which shines over the castle. The gardens are bathed in silver, green turned grey, the flowers like thousands of tiny stars scattered across the shadowy beds and bushes -- galaxies, solar systems. He’ll miss flowers, and he’ll miss the moon, and gods, the _sun._ He’ll miss warmth; he’ll miss Erik. 

And then he’s crying again. There are no guards; even if there was he’s not sure he’d care. The balcony is like a sheet of ice beneath his feet, the stone caught by the air chill, but the ocean waters are colder, the caves and stone castles nestled in the sand frozen, dead, numbing. 

_Charles!_  
  
He holds the balustrade in a shaking, white-knuckled grip. Looking down Charles watches the white frothy waves shattering against the rockpools, licking up the edges of the cliff to his right. The lighthouse casts a gold beam across the swirling tide, and it shines so alluring for but a moment before it’s thrown back into that black tumbling mass of destruction, something he feels curling in him. Charles imagines the stone cracking in his grip, splintering his palms; imagines thick strings of his rich blood webbing and snapping as he pulls the stone apart, pulls himself apart. His hands don’t belong in Erik’s hair, they don’t deserve to be held in his grip. They don’t deserve Erik’s rings or bangles; he doesn’t deserve to touch Erik.

He shouldn’t have saved him. He should have kept his hands to himself.

_Charles, run!_  
  
“Charles!”

He screws his eyes shut, and he misses the movement in the waters beneath him.

The spurs on Erik’s boots jingle, his heels clacking on the stone. Small, insignificant sounds, that Charles makes himself memorise.

Keeping his back to Erik helps. It provides some sense of distance. It gives him a moment to blink the tears back.

Touching Erik’s mind is like crawling into bed together, like sitting side-by-side in a rickety, cozy tram, like reading beneath the willows, hidden behind the hydrangea and the lilies. Heat rises his Charles’ eyes and he draws his ragged breaths between his teeth. Feeling Erik’s mind hurts as much as remembering, so Charles doesn’t.

“I’m sorry.” The ocean crashes between them, swirling, sucking, slamming against the rock. “Charles, I’m sorry.”

His lips are dry and sore from the lipstick; he licks them, but his mouth still can’t hold words. He wasn’t made to hold human words. He wasn’t made to be in a human world. The pads of his fingers are burning against the stone.

Eventually, he chokes, “You couldn’t wait?” and the words come out like a stone coming unstuck from a dam, and everything starts to fall out in sobs and snarls. Charles turns, skirt whipping around him, and he crouches slightly, bent slightly, crippled in pain. “You picked her? Why did you pick her?” Erik’s breathing hard; Charles thinks he might be crying. “Why couldn’t you love _me_?” 

Erik watches him through glassy, red-rimmed eyes; takes his blows, one after the other, and Charles shouldn’t be feeling more and more wretched with every word he spits, but he does. It’s like Erik’s folding in on himself, that emptiness he carries sucking him deeper and deeper, winding him like a punch and causing those glittering tears. It's an emptiness that Magda can’t fill. They both know it.

So crying, always crying, Charles steps to Erik and holds his gloved hand to his cheek and feels sick at the way Erik leans into such a simple touch, at the way he turns into Charles’ palm with such a blatant need and shocking nakedness. “I had to,” whispers Erik, and Charles knows he had to, remembers Edie’s warning words and firm grip; he sinks his fingers into Erik’s mind and pulls out Edie, standing in a kitchen, holding her son’s wrist and saying, _the girl from Tauw._ “I have to marry her, Charles.”

It’s over. It doesn’t matter what he says now. So he'll say anything, everything that comes to mind. “Marry me. Marry me because you love _me._ ”  
  
Erik’s shaking his head, holding Charles’ wrist, fingers rubbing over the small ball of bone. It’s happening, thinks Charles. He’s losing Erik. He’s lost him. His soulmate rejected him. 

Desperate, he seethes, “Marry me for my power. Marry me, and we can make a new truce. We’ll stop the killing!”

“But your family wants you dead.” Erik’s voice is barely louder than a breath. His fight’s gone. His everything is gone. Charles won’t let him do this. “Without a _Q’ian-_ ”

A piercing sharpness spears in through Charles’ temple and blocks out whatever Erik says. Charles flinches back, gulps his breaths, and blinded by pain spits, “They killed me once, and I came back. They can try again. They won’t succeed.”

When he can see again Erik is standing much closer than he was before, one hand gripping the balustrade behind Charles, the other fingering his skirt like his touching smoke, waiting for it to disappear. “Charles.” He whispers his name like it’s one of the last words he’ll say. “I love you too much to test that.”

“Marry me,” Charles sobs into the space between them that is slowly, slowly narrowing. “I need you with me.” He needs to make Erik stay, but he doesn’t know how. His hands shake but he brings them to Erik’s cheeks, and he thumbs the tears there so gently, like if he’ll press too hard Erik’s skin will tear. “If you marry her it may as well be your blade slicing into me.”

The lighthouse swings its beam across the balcony, turning them to gold, cutting through the silver net the moon casts over them. Erik’s eyes shimmer with a new colour Charles hasn’t seen in them before, glossy and clear like the thin water at the shore. And then the night takes them, and the stone is frozen against the small of Charles’ back, and the more it digs the closer Erik gets until Charles can feel the warmth of his chest, until he can’t see those sun-streaked eyes anymore, until all he can feel are Erik’s shallow breaths on his chin and his hands on his waist and the side of his nose against his own. “That dress is beautiful on you.”

The stone behind him is solid, and the man before him is broken, but when they kiss Charles feels every loose piece in each of them slottingback together in time with their lips.

The pain leaves him. Charles almost can’t believe it’s happening, wouldn’t if it weren’t for the way Erik is pulling away only to loose a shaky whimper and push back in again, kissing him stronger and with more confidence every time. Charles’ hands twist into Erik’s hair, Erik pulls at his waist and rubs up his sides, and the kiss is wet, with tears and unpracticed mouths and clumsy desperation. His makeup is ruined, his stubble drags against Erik’s cheek when he presses up at an odd angle, but Charles is caught. The pain has left but only because Erik’s holding him together with his arms around him; when he lets go Charles knows he’ll shatter, scatter across this marble stone balcony, behind the partition of white-starlight flowers.

Each time Erik ebbs away Charles leans back in, desperate to keep this going, and Erik yields to him perfectly -- til he breaks them apart and holds him by his shoulders. When Charles pushes in Erik shakes his head, but lets their foreheads press together, and Charles knows this is the end. He waits for it. He hears Erik picking his words. “I have to go back.”

How cruel -- to show Charles what he can’t have. “Let’s run away,” he begs, and he can feel Erik begin to pull away but grips his wrists and it feels like he’s sinking into the stone. “Right now. We can take a night zeppelin, we can go anywhere.” If they don't, his heart will sink into the marble, and he’ll never know warmth again. “You need me, Erik, and I need you.”

Erik pulls back, and Charles wants to be sick. “It’s too late. Magda proposed. I couldn’t turn her down, Charles, and it’d take something… something more powerful than the both of us to stop the marriage.”

“Nothing is more powerful than what I feel for you.”

Some strangled kind of noise creeps from Erik’s throat, and Charles can see his red eyes wetting once again. “I can’t.”

“I know you feel it too, Erik.”

Silent seconds turn into silent minutes, and Charles cards his fingers through Erik’s hair. Even though he has Erik here in his arms he still feels as though he’s being watched; but he ignores it, he clicks his tongue softly, and Erik clicks once in reply, says aloud, “I have to go back.”

“And I have nowhere to go back to.”

He hears Erik wetting his lips, tasting him. “We’ll work something out. We’ll figure it out.”

There’s nothing that Charles can say, so he turns his head and gazes out at the sea. It blends seamlessly with the night sky. Erik’s breath puffs across his temple. “That dress does look wonderful on you. You’re beautiful.” He doesn’t believe him. 

Erik’s fingering the skirt again, tugging on something gently. He takes Charles’ hand, rearranges his fingers to let them splay, and Charles feels something sliding over his index finger like a ring. Looking down it’s only a small loop of silk, sewn into the skirt, and it lifts the lacy, ruffled hem from the marble -- Charles starts crying again, sobs crawling from his throat, lips chewed raw between his grinding teeth. “I can’t even dress myself without you.”

Erik’s voice is soft, tone sounding somehow conclusive. “It’s been a lot to learn.”

They stand together til Charles’ tears run out and he’s too frozen to feel his feet anymore. Two minds are swirling over by the fountain, some place that seems so faraway and otherworldly from here tucked together on the balcony, but Charles hasn’t the energy to delve in or turn them around. The gravel crunches tellingly, and Erik tenses, and when he moves it’s jarring, stunted, like his mechanics and cogs haven’t turned for decades.

This is how it ends. The anger has drained, there’s nothing left in Charles; just a hole bigger than what he started with, than the one that weighed him down when he laid beneath the waves, staring up at a world he thought he’d never touch.

But he did. And he still can’t have it.

It’s getting late. Erik says something but Charles can’t hear it. Then, Erik presses his hand to the small of Charles’ back and he curves into it one last time, memorising the way Erik’s touch puts fireworks beneath his skin. And as quiet as this began, with the sea crashing behind them, the moon casting its cold glow down over them, Erik walks away, and it ends 

*

_Charles…_

That voice is back again, cloudy in his mind, soft in his ears.

_Get out--_

He’d thought it was Erik. But it’s smoother, older. It’s wind where Erik is hurricane.

_Help me._  

His stockings had split and ripped on the gravel, steps damp and muddy from the dew of the grass. There’s a track behind him, marking out each slow, dragging step he takes. From the moonlit garden, through the shadowy, crystalline parlour, to here: a foyer, lined with green tapestry.

A memory comes to him, lazy through his cloudy, thick mind. Erik holds him around his middle, and Erik is yelling, and Raven is afraid for Charles more than for herself. He remembers flashes of white, cloudy water in a fountain, thinks about Erik breaking his legs to keep him from running. 

The marble shines like ice around him, like bone. The lamps are out, letting the moon in from where its slivers creep from the cloister. Decisions are slow to be made, then lost like a shell dropped on a shifting dune, and when Charles tries to reach his fingertips only brush the grains of sand. Thoughts are wrapped in smoke, but Charles sluggishly realises his eyes don’t hurt anymore, he isn’t cold.

Instead, he’s trapped. He takes the steps one at a time, but he doesn’t want his legs to move. Erik told him never to come here. But the voice in his mind glimmers, and like treasure Charles hunts for it.

The fountain bubbles from the middle of the garden, hissing and spilling over the sandstone tiers and turning the grey grass into a swamp. Caught looking at it, Charles almost doesn’t notice the figure at the other end of the corridor standing there staring at him, waiting for him -- but that silvery voice echoes so loudly in his mind that Charles thinks it had to have been said aloud, and his gaze snaps from the garden to the ground and he blinks himself awake.

_Run._

Shaw stands at the end of the corridor. His grin is so wide it glints in the moonlight. His hand are tucked behind his back, in the sleeves of his yellow greatcoat, and his mind is deathly empty. Not even the bloodthirsty aura surrounds him now, it’s all been… muted. Shut off. Trapped. A silver helmet covers his head and the bridge of his nose.

Charles wakes up, the tug he’d been following drops suddenly, but he still can’t run; now for a different reason.

Shaw’s mouth splits over his teeth. “I wondered how long it would take.” Even if he could move Shaw would catch him. He can’t speak, can’t move. Shaw slinks towards him slowly, like an octopus creeping through rocks. “Erik tried his hardest to keep you away, but you can’t resist your biology.”

His steps don’t echo, he stalks silently. Erik, Charles thinks. It hits him like glass. He needs Erik. He disobeyed Erik. Erik won’t come. Erik chose Magda. 

Shaw is content be with Charles’ silence, filling it with his own venomous words slipping through his sneer. “It did take you longer than I thought, however. You’re stronger than I anticipated.” He’s close enough to touch, close enough to kill. Charles shakes so hard he makes himself sick, and he pushes his telepathy out but there’s nothing to touch. Shaw’s mind is as slippery as wet metal and just as cold, just as impenetrable. Each time he tries to stretch across the castle he comes up with nothing, like his net has been cut, punctured, like water slipping through his fingers. Shaw grins like he knows.

“The night Erik smuggled you in she was restless. She thrashed so much.” He can’t touch Shaw’s mind, he can’t stop. “It piqued my interests.” Charles tries to keep still, to turn his fear to anger, but this isn’t Charles’ world, and he hasn’t any power here. “She refuses to speak to me, you see, and she would never reveal one of her children. But, unfortunately, she is as drawn to you as you are to her.”

He can’t outrun him, Charles can’t split his mind apart; Erik is with Magda and he promised Erik he’d never come here and he broke it but he _needs Erik to get him out of this,_ he doesn’t know what to do, to say _._ Whatever Shaw wants isn’t good; but if he can keep Shaw talking in his shallow, obscure lines, he might be able to find Erik before he finds out. 

Charles wets his lips and hopes his voice doesn’t give away his fear. “What are you talking about?” Slowly, he stretches; he pushes his telepathy through the corridors, filling them like a flood. Shaw cocks his head to the side. The helmet casts his eyes into shadow.

“Don’t play coy, Charles. There’s no one else around, there’s no need for secrets.”   
  
He skims past maids and footmen, flitting from mind to mind.His mouth is almost too dry to speak.“Like what?”  
  
Shaw looks at him like he’s a child, speaks slowly to ensure he catches all the words.“This castle must seem endless, but I can assure you, there are only so many places to hide a mermaid.”

Charles bristles, he can’t help it. His pulse is hammering hard in his neck, something cold trickles down his spine; Shaw knows. _He knows_ , has since that stormy night, and now he has Charles trapped in a flooding corridor-- Charles focuses, hones his telepathy to a needle and pierces into the bright bubble of minds in the ballroom, fighting against the cacophony of it.

“You think I am a mermaid?”

Shaw steps forward; Charles steps back. His telepathy wavers as his hand would if he were trying to reach a high shelf. The ballroom is _too loud,_ but he forces through it, grits his teeth and pushes. There’s a verandah wrapped along the coastal side, overlooking the ocean, almost empty, except for one tumultuous mind -- 

“I think you are more than that. I think you are the next  _Q’ian._ ”

_There!_ Charles bursts into Erik, spills into his mind and wrenches his attention just as Shaw closes the distance between them and twists his hand into Charles’ hair. He pulls him up taut, like a doll dangling from a string, and Charles seethes in pain, reaches to pull Shaw’s wrist but he’s as solid as stone, and the fingers in his hair only drag him up tighter.

Half a castle away Erik lurches forward. Charles is projecting-- projecting panic, a numbing, petrifying fear-- he can’t think words let alone push them, can’t scream let alone speak. But on the other end he feels Erik thinking and feeling for him, taking his horror and turning it into his own.

And then Charles feels him running.

Shaw’s grin twists wide, and turns easily from the path of a clumsy punch Charles throws towards that snarling mouth. His scalp burns, and a headache starts beneath his skull but he ignores it and the hot tears spiking in the corners of his eyes.

“You are, aren’t you, _Q’ian’ee_? What are you doing in this castle instead of ruling your own?” Erik will be here soon, he’ll know what to do, he’ll take him back to his room like he always does, just the two of them, and he’ll fix everything-- “You lost your mentor, your status, perhaps? Were you banished?” Shaw’s eyes flick to Charles’ skirt, like he knows of the scars, and heat bursts across Charles’ face. “Did you fall in love with a human?” The tears start dribbling from the corners of his eyes; he can’t help it. “Did you fall in love with Erik?” 

Shaw has him held so high he stands on his toes. His sleeves slip down his arms, and he clenches his jaw to keep from crying out in pain, in rage; but Shaw doesn’t notice, just bares his crooked teeth, and says, low and sick, “Erik will never love you.” 

 

 

Suddenly light sears behind Charles’ eyelids and his breath is ripped from him; something spears into his mind, desperate and careless, but it can’t control him, it can’t make him run. Shaw says something but he can’t hear over the ringing in his ears, but it matters little. Shaw’s grip shifts, he turns, and drags Charles behind him to his office.

Regaining his balance Charles tries a kick behind Shaw’s knee. He can’t go in that room, he knows that he can’t, that if he does he won’t come out and Erik isn’t here yet so he lashes out, digs his nails into the yellowed skin under Shaw’s wrist; but the admiral doesn’t even look back at him let alone flinch. Instead he yanks on Charles’ hair, pulls him with an unfathomable strength, pushes him to Charles’ knees crack on the stone and pain lances up his thighs, and he drags him.

“The tank is too small for the both of you,” Shaw is saying, and while Charles struggles to understands humans he thinks Shaw is some other mystery entirely. One that isn’t human. “But imagine the power.”

Tanks, children -- flashes of white in his mind, flickers of silver behind glass. He doesn’t want to believe it. He can’t. She was _killed,_ years ago, and then the fighting began, and then Charles’ birth mother stopped looking at him, and the humans he was always told would kill him without thought became safer than the waters he’d always called home.She was killed, and the only light in that sinking stone castle flickered out. 

Unless she wasn’t. Charles swallows, too stunned to try and stall Shaw. It all starts to piece together. 

He can feel Erik closer now, moments away from finding them. But he can also feel a second mind, he can hear rattling, like chains, and a call he hasn’t heard for a decade.

The door isn’t locked, and Shaw pushes in with his shoulder. He throws Charles into the room like he’s tossing a coat over a chair, careless, easy. Charles lands on his back and the air rushes from his chest, he hits his head and his vision goes wobbly, but he hears the door lock shut. He hears Shaw talking; but it’s not to him.

“I brought him for you, dear. But you’ll need to teach him better manners; the human who kept him from us inspired the same rude stubbornness that he has himself.”

It’s then that Charles notices the eastern wall and the long curtain that covers almost the entirety of it. Something shrieks in anger behind it, muffled by water and thick glass, but he hears it like sonar, and Shaw’s grinning, and then he’s reaching over and pulling a thickly wound cord and the curtain slides open.

Her tail is just as he remembers: a line of shimmering white, with lightning-quick ripples of pink and blue rolling from her waist to the wide, feathery fins curling at the end of it. She doesn’t seem as big, but perhaps that’s just because of how she lays on her side in the cramped tank. Thick cuffs chain her wrists to the floor. Her silver hair covers her bare chest and floats around her, obscuring her face, but her eyes flash unmistakably. The water around her is white with bubbles, shimmering with power.

Emma stares at Charles, and Charles stares back at his _Q’ian._

* * *

 


	8. VIII

“You stole her,” Charles whispers. She’s alive. The _Q’ian_ is alive. All these years, she was here, hidden behind glass and curtains. “You _took_ her.”

Her mind floods through him, and he feels everything she does; fear, incredulity, hope. She can’t reach the glass, but she stretches her fingers towards him, and Charles understands.

Her rage -- he feels Emma’s rage. Shares it. He dips into her mind and sees rockpools, and mornings and middays and evenings spent talking with a narrow young naval officer, listening to his dreams of climbing the ranks. He feels the ice of betrayal spreading through his chest. For all he grins Shaw’s eyes remain empty and soulless. Just like him. “You _took her._ ”

Charles kicks off the stone floor, lunging for Shaw. He slams into him with his bare shoulder, knocking him back only a step before Charles brings his fist into his jaw. Shaw laughs when it connects. Nothing happens. There’s no crack, he doesn’t reel -- instead his face shifts, morphs into the blow, somehow, and Charles’ eyes widen in horror at the way Shaw’s mouth splits into two and then merge back together, the way his head snaps back and his eyes widen in something ferocious.

Shaw catches his wrist and squeezes and the sudden flare of pain has Charles’ knees giving out beneath him. His other hand finds itself around Charles’ throat, and that’s when the panic comes back, so he draws a breath and opens his mouth. “Why?” he manages before Shaw’s grip tightens. “Why did you take her?”

Relief feels cool when Shaw’s grip laxes a fraction, the barest of amounts, but Charles can suck another thin breath and that’s all that matters. Keep his mind distracted and his grip loose, Charles thinks to himself. Keep him still until Erik comes.

Shaw looks at him like he’s stupid, though. He speaks deliberately slow. “I took the queen, and caused a war only I can stop.”

“One man alone cannot end a war,” Charles rasps. Maybe if he can find a way to get the helmet off he can stop Shaw himself.

But Shaw cocks his head, smiles again. “But a king can do whatever he pleases.”

“You’ll never be king,” hisses Charles.

“That is a matter of public opinion, Charles. You must have forgotten how many humans your brothers and sisters have drowned over the years. Humans, with families who want revenge.”

Charles would scoff if he had the breath for it. “So you give them revenge, you send the hunting ships, and they make you king?”

“King Jakob is old, his son unwilling to marry. I am the admiral for Genosha’s fleets. I know how to rule, and to give the people what they want. I am the best option in the wake of a revolution.”

Emma writhes in the tank beside them, the chains shaking silently from the other side of the thick glass. Clouds of blood waft through the water as she works her wrists against the metal, her shrieks of pain echoing like sonar. “You used her for yourself. For your own gain!” Shaw took her away from Charles, and left him more alone than he’d ever been. All that pain, that emptiness, it all came from _him._ “The families you avenge? You have their blood on your hands.”

Shaw simply shrugs, and then his grip tightens. Charles can’t breathe. “Sacrifices must be made to achieve greater purpose.”

Emma’s emotions pour through him. Anger, sorrow, regret; protection. Something overwhelmingly possessive burns through him as flecks start to stipple his vision, and it’d take his breath if Shaw’s grip wasn’t already.

Maybe it won’t be so bad. Erik’s going to marry Magda, anyway. And he’d be with the _Q’ian_ once more--

Charles’ vision wavers and wobbles so he doesn’t see the crash, but he hears it; the shriek of metal tearing from brackets, rivets falling from the wooden door and clinking together as they roll across the stone floor. Shouting, the clattering of a desk. Then Charles is dropped to the ground, forgotten, and as he gulps air he’s hit by that same possessive fire. It burns up his insides and engulfs him. He’s left breathless under the weight of that painfully familiar presence. 

A step away is Erik, Erik who kissed him, who left him, who came back. Charles looks up and watches as Erik uses his powers to pull the brass fixings around the room down and send them like missiles towards Shaw, but Shaw merely bats them to the side like he would flies.

Shaw steps in close to Erik but Erik switches their positions, backing himself deeper into the room but Charles realises also, effectively, blocking him from Shaw. His body is a line of tension, taut and ready to snap. “Get away from him,” Erik snarls, fist white-knuckled and shaking. He can’t hit Shaw. They all know he can’t hit Shaw. He’s untouchable. “Get out of my kingdom.”

“It’ll be yours when you’ve killed every last mermaid in the sea. It’s what the people want now. You need to deliver, or else who knows what riots those unwashed sailors will be wont to create.” Shaw leers back, unthreatened, unafraid. “Why wait? You could start tonight. You could take the _Q’ian_ and her _Q’ian’ee._ ”

The desk splinters and cracks beneath the pressure of the copper brackets lining it, and wood skitters across the floor. A diamond shard the size of Charles’ hand catches his eye but it’s both too far away and too small to do any real damage to Shaw. He’ll need something else, another weapon. Erik’s mind is a mess of panic and fear, a litany of _save Charles get Charles protect Charles kill Shaw,_ too thick for rational thought and planning. The room vibrates with his power but it isn’t enough; they need Erik to find a weapon.

“Your tyrannical thirst for blood will not bring peace to this kingdom, your greed will only sink it,” Erik spits. Something within the wall groans dangerously -- piping, Charles thinks, connected to the boiler deep within the castle. The walls must be full of them.

 _Erik,_ he hisses, cutting through the brimming anger. _Open Emma’s cuffs. Smash the tank._

Erik doesn’t look back at him but Charles assumes he understood -- he glances to his right, from the corner of his eye, and watches as the cuffs split silently. _Wait,_ he sends to the _Q’ian,_ and as much as he wants to run over himself and pound the glass til it shatters beneath his fists, he wills Emma to lie still, too. To wait.

“Your desires will have the streets lined with brothels. What’s it like, to fuck a tail? Does he writhe beneath you?” Shaw’s yelling, trying to draw Erik back into the flames. Charles ignores what he’s saying, even if he blushes, too busy working in Erik’s mind, whispering _stay calm_ and _I’m alright_ and _the pipes._ The room is buzzing so fiercely with Erik’s powers that for a moment Charles worries he’ll bring the entire room down on them. He lets himself reach out and stroke Erik’s calf; the electricity in the air cools, his mind stills. “Of course, it wouldn’t be long before poor Magda threw herself from a window. How could anyone live with the shame of their husband running off in the night to fuck things not even human.”

Charles won’t deny that hearing those words hurts, but he clears his head quickly. The helmet is on but Charles can see Shaw is distracted, ranting endlessly. _Let him,_ he whispers to Erik, _and find the right pipe._ The tank is somehow embedded in the stone wall, protruding from it, but Charles knows Erik’s power is strong enough to break through it and shatter the tank, can feel it in his mind, if he can just bring it to the surface…

Erik’s powers come strongest when his emotions burn brightest. Charles bites, and delves, and opens the warmest part of Erik’s mind.

They’re lying on a beach, together, far up enough from the shore that only the tips of Charles’ translucent blue fins are wet by the lapping tide. His tail is accommodated between Erik’s legs, curled over a shin and brushing a waterlogged boot. His fingers are in Erik’s salt-dry hair, pushing his sandy fringe up from his eyes, and he’s singing, and his bangles keep brushing across Erik’s cheeks and teasing him to the edge of wakefulness. The sun is hot behind Charles, and it sets his hair aflame -- copper curls licking across pink cheeks, calling to him like the copper coins in the sand, the iron in the rocks. Touching his skin feels like touching gold -- currents jolt through him every time Charles’ fingers scratch his forehead. He wants more of it. He wants Charles to touch him everywhere. Like love, the sensation is addictive.

If this were a memory Charles would be pushing off from Erik and diving back into the sea. That’s how Charles remembers that morning. But in Erik’s head he never does. In Erik’s mind, he stays; he stays, and they kiss, with the sun behind Charles and the sea in Erik’s lungs.

Metal shrieks and the stone crunches -- something rings in Charles’ ears faintly, and he looks over in time to see something long and thin pierce through the glass and spear across the room, stopping only after it’s gone all the way through Shaw’s left thigh.

Shaw looks about as shocked as Charles feels, but only for less than a second. The tank shatters, a wave of water and glass pouring onto the floor. Emma tumbles with the momentum, slamming onto her side on the layer of glass, but Charles is in her mind and she feels no pain. Charles can’t move quick enough, pushing off the floor only to throw himself over her.

She’s gaunter than he remembers, than he wants to see her. Pushing her hair back from her face and staring down into her diamond-clear eyes, they watch each other, bleeding into each other’s minds. The years of loneliness, of Marko and Cain and his mother-- _I know,_ whispers Emma, and it echoes down through him like every other time she’d called to him. As she brings his forehead to hers, he feels the transformation taking place.

Charles manages to shuck the dress, and by then Shaw is screaming.

Blood gushes from around the pipe in his leg, and Charles can tell from the width of it that a sick chunk of his flesh is missing. Erik bends the pipe in on itself, curved at the edges making it impossible for Shaw to extract, but Shaw puts his weight on his other leg and pushes off and throws a punch at Erik’s jaw that connects with a heartstopping crack.

Erik crumples like a discarded shirt. Shaw’s broken something, something isn’t right, but when Charles moves to rush to Erik’s side he instead falls on his chest and shivers in a cold wash of panic that flushes across his shoulders, down his spine, to his tail.

He can’t move. He can’t get away. He drags himself to Erik, and glass wedges itself into the heels of his palms, cutting the corset still wrapped around his chest. He pushes with his grazed, raw tail but it just slides across the wet stone with little purchase, and behind him Shaw stands, watching. Watching like this is a game. His blood marbles in the water, coating Charles’ tail.

“Get _up,_ ” Charles yells, grabbing Erik’s shoulders and pulling him close. He’s dazed, his mind is reeling in pain -- his jaw, something’s broken or dislocated, Shaw _punched him hard enough to break him,_ and he wants to lash out but Shaw’s still got that _stupid helmet on,_ and he doesn’t know what to do. He can’t walk, he can’t get up, Emma’s shaking just pulling herself to Charles. She’s too weak from years spent in a cage. Shaw’s limping towards them and Charles doesn’t know what to do. _Please, Erik--_

“The ocean,” Erik slurs, grabbing his arm but he’s too weak to squeeze, “Get to the ocean.”

It’s the last thing he says before Shaw lifts his right foot and stomps down on the bone just beneath Erik’s left knee.

Charles hears the pop before he feels it. It’s disconcerting, and for a second he sits there, wondering, _what?_ It’s sick. It’s the sound of one bone becoming two; accompanied by a huff of exertion, a croak of shock. Erik is staring down at his leg like he never knew he had one; face twisted in a horrified kind of incredulity. And then the cold fire bursts through him, licking from his knee down to his foot and then climbing the rungs of his ribs, the notches in his spine, ripping his muscles apart; when he screams, Charles screams, too, the agony mirrored in his phantom limbs.

Emma slides onto her back and throws her tail at Shaw’s leg, knocking him off balance and sending him stumbling back into the desk with a cry of his own when his injured leg bumps against the wood. Erik moans something long and broken, eyes glassy and mouth open as he slumps to his side. No. _No._ “Come on,” hisses Charles, trying to tamper down Erik’s pain. “Come on, we have to go, _please Erik,_ I’m not leaving you here.”

Shaw stumbles back to his feet with a roar, but Emma’s tail unfurls. She swipes at the pipe and sends him snarling back. Blood oozes in thick syrupy strings down into the water. “Erik,” Charles tries again, trying to quell the pain but keep him _here,_ but what can he do? He can’t carry him, not like this. Not with a tail. Even with the pipe Charles can’t take out Shaw, not with that _stupid helmet--_

There’s nothing he can do. He can’t win this.

“The ocean,” Erik wheezes, body starting to shake in adrenaline, or shock. Charles starts to shake his head. “They’re waiting--”

“I’m not leaving you,” he seethes, stiffly grabbing Erik under the arms but the movement jostles his broken leg and he’s yelling again, and Emma can’t keep Shaw away for long. “Erik, you can get up, you can move--”

“ _I can’t,_ you…” Erik gulps his breaths, and Charles shakes his head rapidly. “You, and... the _Q’ian._ ”

“I’m not _leaving_ you,” Charles spits, but every time he tries to move Erik he moans low and broken, and Charles watches him white out from the pain.

 _Charles,_ pushes Emma frantically. She manages to catch Shaw’s bad leg again, but Charles knows she won’t be able to hold him off long.

She strikes out again, but this time Shaw catches her tail, and he throws her out of his path. She skids across the glass-laden stone floor, slamming into the back of the door so hard it rattles in the frame. Then Shaw’s gaze locks on him. _Please, Erik--_

Erik pushes himself against the wall, and stretches his left arm. He clenches his fingers and Shaw drops to the ground with a scream, Erik pinning the pole to the stone like it’s magnetized. “Go, _now._ There’s a drain in the fountain.”

He clicks his tongue hurriedly, chirps soft and desperate on instinct. Charles cards trembling fingers through Erik’s hair. There’s blood under his nails; he doesn’t know whose it is. “If I leave you he’ll kill you.”

Erik shakes his head, clicks back. “Trust me,” he hisses, eyes shut in pain, and on instinct Charles leans in and presses their mouths together.

The door swings open by its lock and the pull Erik has on it. Water spills out across the stone walkway, shimmering with slivers of glass that catch in the lantern light, and Emma doesn’t wait, sliding out with it. Charles can feel her wonder, her shock; her emotions pulse like the colours of her opalescent tail, and he drinks them up like she does the image of the moon above the garden. “Trust me,” Erik murmurs again, sucking shallow breaths between his teeth. “I won’t be able to hold him for long.”

_I’ll be down there._

Nodding, Charles presses his fingers to Erik’s temples and pushes a wave of soft, soothing calm through him. His breathing smoothes, his eyes flutter shut in relief. He grips Charles’ hand for a beat, squeezing it gently, and it’s all the promise Charles needs.

Emma’s white fins are sliced through with flecks of glass but if she notices she doesn’t show it. Her tail is almost twice as long as Charles’, longer than he remembers. Now it curls and flicks across the stone as she pulls herself to the grass.

“ _No,_ ” he hears Shaw yell from the room, but Charles won’t look back. He can’t. The tug to Erik is almost too strong to ignore; but to trust him, Erik had said. Trust him, and go to the ocean.

The grass squelches between his fingers, but the water has stopped bubbling. The fountain has quieted now that it’s free of Emma’s influence, and it’s easy for her to pull herself onto the bottom ledge. _Come, Charles,_ she murmurs, and the softly rippling water turns to starlight around her. It feels like a lifetime ago he saw water look like that. It feels like a life that no longer belongs to him.

He pulls himself into the fountain, the water of which comes to his collar. Before he does, he pulls off the rest of the corset, stuffing it behind one of the bushes circling the stone base, and feels a sting for guilt towards Logan. A drain, Erik had said, there was a drain-- this part of the castle is lower than the gardens, and closer to the shore. If Charles remembers Raven’s tour correctly, it’s not far from the servants’ quarters and Marie’s kitchen, which has a back courtyard that leads down to the shore. It’s plausible that it could reach the ocean, working on some kind of siphoning system. Erik can no doubt feel the piping.

Through Erik he watches Shaw grow restless, and feels Erik’s powers slipping. Hurriedly, Charles drags his hands over the floor of the pool, the pads of his fingers grazing against the smooth stone. Emma watches him for a moment before she copies, feeling across the floor. _Something with ridges,_ he thinks, pushing the sensation at her. She’s lived in the human world for years but never felt anything other than the bite of her shackles and the betrayal of a man she thought loved her.

Emma’s reading him but Charles doesn’t mind; it’s comforting, having someone like him so close, but at the same time his mouth twitches with the reflex to move as he speaks with her telepathically.

 _We didn’t have the touch,_ she says, and Charles goes to say, “The urge to?” aloud but catches himself.

 _He wasn’t the one for me,_ Emma whispers. _But I pretended he was._ Regret tinges her words, turning them cold, dismissive. She plays a memory for him, of Shaw on the sand, telling her he’d be king one day. It’s greyed out, shadowy and dim now. The tide is no longer glassy and blue, the sun white instead of gold. _I thought we’d rule together._

Charles takes her arm, clicks his tongue, and ghosts his nose along her gills. _It’s time to go home, Q’ian._

It’s Charles who finds the grate, and with Emma’s help they pull it from the pitch black hole. Emma stares at it pretending she isn’t scared, but Charles can feel her fear rolling off her.

“Erik said… I trust Erik. We have to go in.”

Charles has never heard her speak aloud. “You feel his love, when he touches you?”

A knot ties itself in Charles’ throat. He swallows. “I feel his love even when we’re apart.”

The shriek of metal tearing apart cuts into the night from the office then, slicing through the dim. Emma glances around frenetically. With her hair limp over her cheeks she looks girlish, too young to have been so hurt, too afraid of the water. Charles remembers a time when he felt like that. He pulls her into his arms, pushes his wavering courage into her, and eyes the hole over her shoulder.

“Hold onto my tail. We’re going to make it.”

Erik’s voice is is raspy and thin. _Charles, I can’t hold him down for long--_

Emma looks back at the room. Shaw’s shadow hankers in the doorway, and with the crooked pipe he doesn’t look human.

“He isn’t,” Emma decides.

Charles nods once. Quickly, he pushes down to the ballroom once more and finds Armando, threading into his mind the inexplicable urge to come and find Erik.

Together their tails shimmer and shine, offering a faint, effervescent glow that chases away some of the shadow filling the drain. Charles ducks under the surface first, and it surprises him how quickly his vision adjusts. He gives a few experimental clicks and chases the way they bounce off the stone, measures the circumference of the hole that way. He clears his mind, tethers himself to Erik and to Emma behind him and pushes down, head first.

It’s tight. It’s tight and it’s black and cold, but his senses adjust. He forces himself to stay calm, for Emma, who holds him around the bottom of his tail. It’s wide enough to allow his shoulders, so he knows it’s wide enough for her to fit comfortably. With his arms outstretched he pulls himself down, belly dragging on the craggy edges of the tunnel, but in this form his skin is too thick for the cold or the rocks to breach.

Every few pulls Charles clicks to gather his bearings. The tunnel must slope diagonally down; or at least that’s the direction Charles feels they’re crawling in. Keeping half a mind still on Erik, it’s hard to pay too much attention to which rock he grabs, to anything other than telling himself to _keep going, get to the end, get to the ocean._ Erik lost Shaw not long ago, and Charles thinks he can feel him in the base of the fountain sloshing around; panic grips him, his hand slips from in front of him and he jolts forward, Emma rushing behind him.

He steadies himself but adrenaline kicks through him, ready to run or fight, and it doesn’t do well contained in a black, constricting space.

The tunnel grows narrow quickly, and he has to tuck his shoulders in as tight as he can. _He can’t get us here,_ he sends to Emma, but says it mostly to calm himself more than her. The tunnel will end. They won’t get stuck. They’ll get to the ocean.

But they can’t go back. Only forwards.

At some point the tunnel drops in a steep line, almost straight down, but still too tight for Charles to swim freely. His arms started to ache a time ago, but he ignores it now. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been down here, where the minutes seem to either last years or a heartbeat. The water doesn’t flow, leaving it almost stagnant, flat in his gills. He may as well be holding his breath.

He starts to think of Erik. He wonders if Armando found him, or if maybe Shaw had taken out his rage on his other leg, and then his arms, and then his head. No, no, he can’t let himself think like that. He mightn’t make it out of this tunnel if he does.

Charles clicks his tongue now as more of a comfort than as a means to orientate himself. There are only two things Charles knows he’ll find: the rock he’s currently pulling himself on, and the rock he’s going to pull himself on. Sometimes, Emma clicks back, slow and quiet as if she’s shy about being unpracticed. This Emma, this _Q’ian…_ She’s so different to how Charles remembers. She would have gone through so many terrible things; this constricting, secret passage is no better than the tank.

Ten years. Ten years of stale water and darkness. Charles swallows the knot in his throat.

 _I thought of you,_ Emma admits. _Every day. Alone in your own entrapment._

He loses track of time. Time turns into clicks, and rocks, and sudden, petrifying fear when the tunnel wraps around them even tighter before loosening just slightly. _Erik,_ he thinks, he has to see Erik, he has to be with Erik again, and the only way to get to him is to keep pulling, keep squeezing, keep going down.

The changed taste of the water is the first sign. He sucks in a mouthful, and it passes through his gills, and suddenly it doesn’t feel like he’s choking anymore. Then he can see colours again, not just black and silver and an unnerving electric blue from their tails; he sees the faintest of greens in the distance. It’s murky, light but cloudy, but it’s there, undeniably there.

The tunnel spills out into a chamber about the size of Erik’s bedroom. Charles watches Emma pull herself from the hole, and together they glance around the cave. The floor is covered in protruding stalagmites, all rigid and gnarled, and the ceiling around the tunnel opening is decorated with similar formations. The green comes from the off colour of the limestone. Caves like these are where Charles spent so many of his days alone, exploring the caverns and grottos; he feels no familiarity now. There are too many shadows, not enough light.

 _Come on,_ he urges Emma, twining their fingers together. His tail flexes freely, pulling them along. He catches Emma glancing at it.

Ripples of electric light don’t play beneath dead scales. His scars are poignant, stark. _Did they do that?_

_Marko did. Not the humans._

_But because of a human._

Charles doesn’t reply. He only sends out clicks, and chases the the echo of his voice bouncing from the stone.

The water changes again. It’s fresher in his gills, and minutely warmer. The cave opens deeper down than Charles would like but he’s getting closer, closer and closer and he chases the incline of the sand.

Breaking the surface of the ocean feels like waking up from a bad dream. The sky is purple with pre-dawn light, streams of pink chasing away the stars and the black they hang in. He can see the lighthouse’s beam arcing out across the water around the curve of the cliffs. That means the rockpools aren’t far. Emma surfaces next to him, stares up at the moon and the stars like she never thought she’d see them again, and he hurriedly takes her hand, diving just below the waves.

He should have felt the minds. He should have felt them swarming just out of the beam’s trajectory. He should have known they were there. But distracted by Emma’s surging feelings of _freedom,_ fueled by the urgent need to be by Erik’s side, he didn’t notice. Swimming as hard as his tail can push Charles brings them around the cliff’s edge to the shore and expanse of sea he knows spreads on the other side.

He can see where the rocks climb up the slope of the sand. They’re not far.

But then something pierces through the water, a shriek echoing like sonar, and stunned Charles pulls away from Emma to clap his hands over his ears and curl in against the grating wails.

When he opens his eyes again she’s gone, a stream of fizzing bubbles and soft white light fading quickly in her wake.

 _Q’ian,_ he sends into the dark water. Nothing comes back. Charles starts for the surface, skin crawling with the sudden need to get out of the water. Now that he’s alone, it starts to come back; Erik, the rockpools, the way Cain chased him down and grinned as he dragged him to Marko.

There’s another cry, and Charles’ heart stops. He feels them then; all twelve of them, as there should be, as there always had been. He’d been the thirteenth, the exception, but he wasn’t their comrade; he was their weapon.

As Charles shoots for the surface he feels the brush of a whip around his tail, but he’s quick enough to miss it. The shore is too far away, but Charles bolts forward in an attempt. Two other mermaids are behind him now, he feels them forming a semicircle behind him. He’s knows their technique, and when he brushes their minds they’re thinking about the reward they’ll get from Marko.

Charles knows the shore is too far and he can’t outswim them. The whip brushes his tail again and he flinches involuntarily, losing him a precious second of speed he can’t go without. They’re not going to stop, Charles realises, even if he makes it to the shore. He betrayed their kind. He’s meant to be dead.

 _I’m sorry,_ Charles pushes, but before he can address their sudden confusion he shoots through each of their minds like an arrow, and cuts them out.

They’re not dead, but Charles glances over his shoulder and watches them sink, stunned and motionless. He doesn’t know their names, two masculine, one feminine, he doesn’t recognise them. But it doesn’t feel like a betrayal. He’ll have to do it nine more times, after all, to nine more nameless mermaids. 

He feels the minds of two more mermaids coming to flank him, homing in with a sick determination. To them, he may as well be a human, fit for drowning. One has a lance Charles feels being aimed, so he ducks quickly, dragging his fins along the sandy floor in the hopes it might cloak him for a moment long enough to change directions. Charles jolts to his right, chasing the shoreline instead of trying to fly up it, zipping between the rocks.

They click behind him, chasing the sounds bouncing back from the rocks and from him. He doesn’t take a clear path through the rocks in an attempt to lose the pack, and more than once he scrapes the flat underside of his tail along the raised stone. A cloud of blood plumes from the graze, but he hurriedly waves it away lest they scent him. His gills flutter with nerves. If he needed air he’d be heaving.

Charles weaves through the rocky incline, sticking to the shadows as much. He wills his tail to dull, but lights still play beneath his scales and glow against the boulders. The spaces between the rocks are too tight for him to speed through. He can feel two mermaids swimming above him, hoping to either overtake or drop down on him, so he abruptly stops and pushes from a rock, turning back around to lose them.

If only Emma hadn’t disappeared, Charles huffs, teeth grit as he bursts out of the rocks and into open water. There’s no where else he can go, until they’re drawn away and he can double back to the shore.It’s risky, but it’s the only shot he has. He glances around for the telltale plume of white bubbles but there’s nothing, just dark on even dark, filled with shifting shadows.

The two from the rocks start to gain on him; he shuts them down quick enough. The other five are lurking, spread across this part of the ocean, but they’re too far for him to pinpoint accurately.

He’s almost made it when he feels them. It’s on a matter of seconds and he’ll be surging up onto the shore, but when he catches their minds he doesn’t slow for impact. Four have minds that are blank save for their directive: find Charles, capture Charles, bring him back so Marko can finish him off. But there’s one, which burns so bright with unshielded rage, with a bloodlust and an aura of violence on par with what he’s felt with Shaw, that Charles almost freezes with fear.

It’s a mind that he felt so long ago now that it could have been another lifetime. It’s a mind that flared as he chased Charles from these same rockpools, as he slid his blade between Charles’ scales.

 _I knew you’d show up. You shouldn’t have,_ Cain whispers into his mind. _You really shouldn’t have come back._

Hurried, Charles weaves into the mind of two of the pack, willing them to sleep. He doesn’t have time to shut off the other two, let alone Cain, before his tail slaps again the rippled sand and his shoulder hits the bank, his momentum sending him sprawling and rolling up the shore. He doesn’t allow himself a second to gather himself before he starts grappling at the sand, digging his elbows in and pulling himself up and up, as far away from the water as he can.

When he comes to dry sand, he slumps. Charles rolls onto his back and watches Cain hit the sand so violently Charles can feel mind stunned. The other two have slowed, realising there’s little they can do on the land. Even with their numbers they can’t take him with tails, and Charles doubts they know about their ability to form legs. For a brief moment, he’s free. He’s safe.

Until he hears footfalls crunching behind not far him, until harsh breaths fill the air alongside his. Shaw lumbers towards him, his injured leg dragging. Charles isn’t afraid. He’s between the two people who want him captured most in both of his worlds, but he isn’t afraid.

“Emma’s gone,” Charles yells, watching Cain crawling up the shore. “You’ll never get her back. Just give this up.”

Shaw spits on the sand. He speaks through a rasp. “I’ll have you. I’ll _have you,_ ” Shaw roars. It’s then, watching the sky starting to bleed, that Charles realises it’s dawn, and he hasn’t slept, and he’s _tired_. Tired of running away.Shaw’s exhausted, in agony, and has lost too much blood. It trails behind him in flecks and splatters.

Cain is brutish, hankering, and twice the size of Charles. But it’s his size that weighs him down. His fists sink into the wet sand, and he struggles to pull himself up past the tide. Charles watches the both of them. If he wasn’t so tired himself, he’d laugh.

“I’m not scared of you anymore, Shaw. You’ll never be king. You’ll never be anything.”

Shaw’s so far gone he can’t understand. He limps forward, says, over and over again, “I’ll have _you_ , you’ll be  _mine_. I’ll keep you.”

“Unfortunately,” says Erik, his voice carrying across the dune, “I can’t allow that.”

Charles jolts up, morning just bright enough that he can see Erik standing over on a grassy knoll. He’s favouring his left leg, but he’s standing. Behind him is Logan, three long, glinting blades protruding from between his knuckles on each hand, and Marie, who stands firmly beside him, her gloves gone.

Even with the first beams of sunlight crawling over him, Charles hasn’t felt warmer than he does now, looking up at Erik. With the sun settling in his hair and sharpening his features, Charles doesn’t think he’s ever felt safer.

Shaw pitches forward with a snarl, but Erik grips the pipe with his powers and yanks him back away from Charles. He rolls across the sand limply, landing in the tide, and he doesn’t get up.

Erik’s at Charles’ side in a heartbeat, limping across the sand and falling to his knees, holding him desperately. “Your leg,” Charles starts, but Erik hushes him, checking for injuries.

“I’m fine,” he murmurs, eyes flicking over Charles’ body with a kind of shiver-inducing possessiveness. After everything that has happened tonight, this makes Charles blush. He lets Erik pull him into his lap. “I’ll explain later. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry-”

“You got us out,” Charles interrupts, bringing his palm to Erik’s cheek. His skin tingles pleasantly.

Erik looks up then. He glares at Cain, scrabbling over the sand, but otherwise ignores him, glancing around. “Where is the _Q’ian_?”

Charles bites his lip. “I don’t know. She vanished after we got out of the tunnel.”

Erik sighs though he tries to hide it, but Charles looks over his shoulder and spies a group people making their way down the hill. “That’s-”

Once Raven spies them she rushes ahead from the king and queen, running down the knoll across the sand. “Charles!” she yells brokenly, kicking up sand and falling to her knees. A wave of sand hits Charles’ side and he grimaces, but Raven doesn’t notice. She hefts him from Erik and holds him to her chest awkwardly, and the completely blank look Erik is giving his now-empty lap makes him laugh. “No more running _off_! Look what you’ve done this time!”

Behind Raven stand Alex, Armando, and Queen Edie, King Jakob, and Princess Magda. Jakob catches his gaze, but Charles refuses to glance away in either shame or embarrassment. He inclines his head slowly; a bow. Jakob nods in return, then looks out over the ocean.

The sky is a blend of gold and red, fringed by fingers of pink stretching out across it. The sun hangs close to the horizon, its reflection swallowing the blue of the sea, stippled by hundreds and hundreds of merpeople.

And leading them, with her hair coiling in the breeze and water sparkling around her, is the _Q’ian._ As she rises from the water her tail gracefully splits, and her scales and long, lace-like fins shimmer into a skirt that reaches her ankles. Sea foam brushes the hem and sticks, turning into trails of silk that drag over the sand as she steps but never dirty.

Cain emits a startled whimper, and attempts to slide back with the tide, but Emma flags her arm and he freezes.

Charles wriggles from Raven’s embrace, pulling himself to kneel with his head bowed before the _Q’ian._ The mermaids in the water before him all do the same. Beside him, he feels Erik and Raven bow, too, and pride warms his belly.

“King and Queen of Genosha,” she begins, and Charles feels her voice aloud and in his mind. “For many years, my people have believed me dead at your fault, when in actuality the admiral of Genosha’s navy had me hidden within your castle.”

A snarl comes from the ocean, followed by hisses and a chorus of hard clicks. Emma raises her hand, and silence falls. “It was your son who freed me, and returned me to my waters. However, the admiral’s actions gravely jeopardized a century-year old truce. My kind have drowned your people and called it vengeance, while your people have hunted us and called it retaliation. You and I both know we will never be truly be rid of each other, and that the both of us have lost too many to keep on with this futile war. So I propose a new truce. Only, to ensure its longevity, and as symbol of peace between us, I’d like to request a trade.”

Charles looks up, as does Erik. He glances from Emma to the king; she catches his gaze but reveals nothing, just slides her diamond eyes back to Jakob.

“What did you have in mind?” asks the king.

“The full extent of the transgressions of Admiral Shaw against myself and humans and merpeople alikecan never be justified by a human court, as my people cannot be brought to justice for the murder of your citizens on land. However, because of these murders and blind leaders amongst my clan, my kind have become blooded. I fear now they will only ever be sated by the death of the man who caused this gratuitous destruction and heartbreak.

“I request that Admiral Sebastian Shaw be brought to justice by my people. He will return to the ocean with me, to face justice in front of a court of the families he broke apart with his greed.”

To be executed, Charles supplements. He feels no sympathy or sorrow for the human.

King Jakob is silent for a beat, considering. Charles hopes he knows that if he denies her this it’ll be her rage the humans will have to endure. It’ll be her bringing ships down in the dead of night.

“And what will you give us?”

Emma looks across the shore to Charles. She raises a delicate hand and Charles feels himself rise to his feet. He looks down and watches as a tunic of seafoam hangs from his shoulders, covering to mid thigh. It shimmers in the sunlight.

Beside him, Erik rises too.

“I offer my heir as a symbol of peace.” Charles’ breath hitches in his throat. “The _Q’ian’ee_ shall marry your son, Prince Erik Magnus, and unify our two kingdoms. Their marriage will officiate the truce. For as long as the _Q’ian’ee_ resides in Genosha, humans and merpeople will coexist, and never again will we murder one another in misguided vengeance or blind bigotry.”

Charles swallows. Beside him, Erik stands still, staring at Emma with disbelief. With a desperate, yearning disbelief.

He’s almost too scared to look at the humans beside them. He can feel their eyes on him, Raven’s wide and incredulous, Marie’s crinkled at the corners as she grins. But he does turn his head, and Armando’s smile is as bright as the sunrise, and Alex is looking on in understanding. Edie’s features are calm but Charles feels her mind, Jakob’s features are flat but Charles can see him thinking, and Magda--

Magda smiles at him gently. She’s still in a nightdress, with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders that she grips to keep from blowing away in the morning breeze. Her knuckles are stained with browning blood, as are her knees. Shaw’s blood. Charles realises with a swamp of gratitude that she helped Erik.

The silence continues til Emma speaks again, slowly like a reminder, or a warning. “Am I correct in understanding that Princess Magdaline of Tauw is betrothed to the prince? It will not be enough for the _Q’ian’ee_ to merely live as a dignitary within your palace. There is nothing more sacred and well respected in both of our worlds than the bond of love. I fear that the hatred our kingdoms have festered in for so long will be hard to forget; but the task will be made easier by the unity of marriage, and the combination of our kingdoms and their laws.”

Before Jakob can speak Magda steps forward and walks down to the sand. Her slippers sink but she keeps her eyes up, gaze level with Emma.

“I _am_ betrothed to Prince Erik, _Q’ian,_ but as soon as is possible I wish to formally terminate the engagement.”

It’s like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders and cast far away. Charles could cry. He wants to run over and hug her, sob _thank you thank you_ over and over again, but he stays where he stands. The way she smiles at him after she turns to walk back to the grass says, _I know._

The king’s mouth is a steady line. He gazes across to his son, until he finally nods, and with a heavy sigh turns back to Emma. Charles feels Erik come up beside him

His voice echoes across the shore, bracketed by the rockpools and cliffs. “This enmity between our species has carried on far too long. There will never be an act great enough to atone for the lives lost in meaningless bloodshed. We cannot avenge them. Instead, we will remember, and vow to never let this animosity rise between our kingdoms again.”

Jakob walks down the beach. Emma, in her human form, stands taller than he does, but Jakob shows no fits of pride; he bows, and when he rises he says loud enough for all to hear, “Before the merpeople of Genosha’s oceans, by sundown of this day, my son will marry your heir, and peace will be restored between the water and the land.”

Erik’s hand slips into his own, and he threads their fingers together. Erik squeezes, he squeezes back, and looses a shaky sigh from deep in his chest.

It’s over. It’s all finally over.

 _Thank you,_ he pushes, and Emma nods to him, returns warmth, peace, and contentment.

_You are lucky, Charles, to have Erik._

Suddenly, his exhaustion comes back to him. Charles yawns, and lets his eyes shut for a brief moment. When he opens them again it’s because Erik jostles him with the arm around his waist. The crumpled, bloody heap that was Shaw is no longer there; there are no blood stains marring the sand, the tide is white as the sun. There’s no trace of him. The mermaids stippling the ocean sink down into its depths.

* * *

 


	9. IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter before the epilogue! I'd just like to say a big big thank you to everyone for reading, commenting, and most importantly enjoying this. I've been writing this for a long time now, having it finally done feels kind of surreal. Excuse any mistypes, I'll be going back through this and fixing it up all neat and tidy soon. :)
> 
> Super special thank you to Thacmis <3 For a birthday present that was meant to be 'the gift that keeps on giving' it.... took a long time. So, four and a bit months later, happy birthday! Thank you for putting up with me <3

Slow fingers card through his hair. Warmth lazily spreads across his face, to his neck, and when Charles stretches it spreads across his bare collar.

Afternoon sunlight pours in through the tall windows of Erik’s room, three long slanted streaks hitting the pillow, Charles’ throat, and the back of Erik’s head and slowly coax Charles to wake. They watch each other silently for a handful of moments. Erik’s fingers untangle his curls with a careful diligence, as though if he pulls or tugs Charles will tear like the soft tissue his dresses come wrapped it.

Even though Erik’s bed is large enough for five, they lie facing each other, so close Charles can feel Erik’s breaths puffing over his lips. They kissed last night. On the balcony, in Shaw’s room.  On the beach. Charles remembers. Emma had sunk into the sea, and Erik had pushed his nose into Charles’ hair, and pressed his lips to his forehead.

Neither of them have had much sleep, but Charles couldn’t feel more awake. Erik continues to play with his hair, and they both lie and watch each other quietly. Shaw’s gone. Magda will leave the day after tomorrow. And after today, Charles and Erik will be married.

They’ll have another wedding in the coming weeks, held in the citadel. Erik had told him on the walk back from the beach, with his arm over Charles’ shoulder as he limped. “All of the Genosha will come, to see the union of humankind and merfolk. The citadel is beautiful. I’ll show you soon.”

Charles shifts forward, close enough that he can press his knee against Erik’s thighs. They both remember the last time Charles was this close, here, in this bed; but Charles isn’t embarrassed. He pulls the duvet over his shoulder, reaches over to brings it up over Erik, too.

“I’m sorry for waking you,” Erik eventually says, no louder than a murmur. “It was getting late.”

Charles will never mind waking up to Erik. He doesn’t need to tell him this. “Did you sleep much?”

Erik shrugs as best he can, and he rests his hand on Charles’ waist, beneath the cover. Charles feels giddy with excitement, as if Erik’s doing something he shouldn’t, but can. “I slept enough.”

At the forefront of Erik’s mind wisps the notion of waking to find Charles gone, to finding Shaw leering over him. Charles understands. His own dreams swirled with never-ending, slowly-constricting tunnels, mazes of pitch black caves. He brings his fingers to Erik’s temple, touching more out of the ability to do so than of necessity, and clears the shadows away.

With a sigh Erik pulls him til their pressed against each other. It’s then Charles realises Erik’s gone without a shirt, probably too tired to bother after the night they’ve had and the trek back to the castle. He can’t say he minds; especially not when Erik shivers at the slide of Charles’ silk nightdress over his muscles.

They’re silent again, sometimes watching each other, sometimes watching the other doze. Even with his own kind Charles has never known this level of complete contentment, has never felt this weightless brand of calm. Charles doesn’t need his powers to read him or to understand. The way Erik’s thumb rubs tenderly in the dip of his waist says it all.

“We have to go soon,” Erik tells him. As excited as Charles is, he thinks he could lie here for the rest of his days and never feel anything less than bright, bursting happiness.

“Soon.” Charles can feel Erik breathing; his chest presses firmly against Charles’ with every slow breath. “I have a question,” Charles asks, if only to keep Erik from pulling away.

“I’ll do my best to answer.”

Charles swallows. They’d hardly spoken on the walk back to the castle, both too exhausted from the previous night, and the night before that, when Charles had woken up in the middle of the night and… “How did you fix your leg.”

Though he’s been healed, Erik still walked the beach with a limp. Charles tries not to let his worry get the best of him. “Armando found me. He’d brought Logan, who was at the gala, networking. As well as being a general nuisance, Logan’s powers include self-healing and strength, and a wicked set of claws he doesn’t like to talk about.”

“Is he also a doctor?”

Erik smiles, snorting quietly. “I hope not. Annamarie has the power to take away lifeforce, but to also act as a current. She used his powers to heal me.”

“It still hurts you.”

Erik shrugs. “There wasn’t enough time to completely fix it.”

Charles shakes his head, frowning. “If it doesn’t set right, it’ll never--”

“It’s a sacrifice I’ve made peace with,” interrupts Erik. His hand smoothes the curve of Charles’ hip, and settles down on the top of his thigh. “It’s only fair.”

Charles swallows the knot in his throat. “You’ve already been hurt enough because of me.”

“And I hurt you in return.” Erik’s gaze bores into him, and empties out the tension. Charles sighs. He takes Erik’s cheek in his hand, thumbs the sharp bone beneath his eye. His jaw is a fading bruise from Shaw’s punch, Marie’s powers soothing that, too, to Charles’ relief. His chin is scratchy with stubble.

Charles nuzzles into the pillow. “I must look terrible,” he mutters. “You need to shave me. And the makeup…”

Charles keeps himself in Erik’s mind like idle fingers in a pond; touching but not disturbing. So he feels it click before Erik speaks. “Is that why you liked the dresses? To get my attention?”

Hearing Erik say it like that makes him blush harder, and he wriggles further into the duvet like a crab into its spiraled shell. “I suppose,” is the quiet, slightly muffled reply.

“Charles,” Erik says slowly, and Charles can hear his wry smile. “I wouldn’t let myself love you, or accept your love, though I think I always knew you wanted to give it. My… reluctance, I suppose, wasn’t because of you.”

“I thought you’d never love me because as a human I am a man,” Charles mutters. Erik’s hand finds his prickly cheek -- his first instinct is to pull away and dive into the pillow -- but he lets Erik pull his face from the covers.

“Would it be wrong of me to laugh?”

Erik’s somehow gotten even closer. His hand runs up and down Charles’ spine, almost tentatively, like he’s waiting for Charles to notice and push him away, to notice and decide, no, he doesn’t want this.

But fireworks fizz across his shoulders, down to his tailbone. He shivers, and he doesn’t realise his face is pressed to Erik’s neck til Erik sighs deeply. Breathes in his scent. “I do love you,” Erik continues quietly, as if he’s afraid of Charles hearing. “I do. I have. Since the beach, til forever. No matter whether you’re male or female, with scales or legs.”

Charles swallows. His heart swells heavily. “I have another question.”

Erik’s fingers twist through the curls at the nape of his neck. “Yes, Charles?”

“Can I kiss you?”

Erik shifts. He’s too close for Charles to watch his eyes, catch the way the pupil flares, but Charles’ heart flitters between his ribs in nerves and he’s sure he can feel Erik’s pounding, too. Erik’s hand slides down to his neck, and he holds him firmly. Charles holds his arm. “Please,” Erik murmurs, rubbing their noses together, and Charles has had enough of waiting.

It’s the third time they kiss. And then Charles pulls away but Erik doesn’t let him go, and it becomes the fourth, and then the fifth. And then Charles feels Erik’s tongue in his mouth, and he sighs, and he’s sure he bites Erik’s lip too hard but Erik only moans, doesn’t wince, and by the tenth time they’ve kissed Charles is on his back with Erik ranging over him, hands in his hair and Erik’s thigh between his own.

There’s a knock on the door, and then Raven calls, “Erik? May I come in?”

 _Timing,_ Erik thinks, and Charles chuckles with his fingers over his mouth. Erik pushes up to his knees and settles back. “Come in.”

Raven’s in her full uniform, sans her armour. It probably wouldn’t do to dress in full chainmail and chestplate for a truce. She looks like she’s had less sleep than Charles.

But she smiles at them, warm and tired and kind. “Who’s ready for a wedding?”

*

Word had spread, and spread quickly. They’re only halfway to the beach, but Charles can see hundreds of humans standing on the sand and on the hills, from ladies-in-waiting hanging from the garden’s balconies above, diligently holding eyeglasses, to sailors anchored out of the cove. Charles begins to feel even more nervous than before, and coupled with the exhaustion it leaves him feeling a little ill.

Beside him, Erik squeezes his hand. He pushes a question to Charles.

_I’m fine. I’ll be fine._

Erik’s silent for a moment, then he asks, _you aren’t having second thoughts?_

Charles knows he shouldn’t find Erik’s insecurity as endearing as he does, but he can’t help it. Now it’s his turn to squeeze back.

Erik’s father heads their party, with Raven, Alex, and Armando flanking, and Erik’s mother on Charles’side. She’s dressed in Genosha’s royal robes, layers of gold and green fabric draped from her shoulders and arms, folded over and over like petals. Next to her, Charles feels almost naked, wearing only the tunic Emma made him before.

His own wedding, and he hadn’t known what to wear.

Oddly, however, he feels like it won’t matter too much.

The standing crowd falls silent, and as they walk through the parting, they bow, falling to one knee. Humans, bowing for a mermaid. If only Shaw could see, thinks Charles wryly; but he doesn’t regret a thing. Shaw’s where he belongs now.

Though Emma isn’t on the shore, other mermaids are. They laze in the shallows, watching the humans with wide eyed interest as the humans in turn pretend they aren’t looking at the merfolk just the same. It’ll take time to expel old ways of thinking and wipe over prejudices and grudges. There will be fights, and no doubt older humans who won’t take kindly to a mermaid king-consort. But time heals, and Charles knows it’ll suture the open wounds Shaw left.

He smiles at the children sitting between their parents’ ankles on the sand, staring up at him. He smiles at the older men and women, the ones who no doubt have lost family, and he’s delightfully surprised to see their tense smiles back. He vows to learn about every one of their lost sailors.

King Jakob walks them to the shore, where he stills and stares out at the calm waters. The sky above them is a blend of orange and purple, a streak of burnt sunlight stretching across the flat ocean, almost like a path to the sun. The breeze bites at Charles’ shoulders, but distracted by his nerves the cold is easy to ignore.

All is silent for a few moments until the water starts to shimmer and the humans make sounds of surprise. The mermaids bow their heads, as does Jakob, who falls to his knee. Charles watches as one by one the humans lower to the sand, and he’s fascinated by the wave of it. Raven and the knights kneel with their swords stabbed in the sand, Edie bows her head.

 _Should I…?_ Erik sends, but Charles smiles, shakes his head no.

They watch as Emma rises from the water in a shimmer of droplets that hang around her like tiny diamonds. Her golden white hair fans out around her, hanging over her chest and draped over her shoulders. Her long, thin tail weaves through the water, each set of fins flashing with electric lights and waving gently against the surface. She holds her wrists, which are adorned with bangles, and there are two silver armlets cuffed around her biceps Charles spies through her hair. She wears an intricate necklace made of three chains all linked together, similar to the one Charles kept stowed in his grotto.

She lets the tide push her to the sand. Her tail shrinks into long, drifting skirt that wisps around her ankles and trails behind her, floating with the sea foam.

When she speaks her voice is no louder than a murmur, but it carries across the cove, rumbling like thunder. “Humans of Genosha, from today onward the threads tying you to your rage and your vengeance will be cut. A new truce is long overdue; a truce as strong and as infallible as the bond of two mates in love.”

Charles feels a thousand eyes on him. The minds around him are so loud he almost winces, but Emma’s voice helps clear them away as she talks. She speaks of peace, of forgiveness, of finding the two in a marriage. She gestures for Erik, and pulls him forward into the tide, accepting him into her waters. Watching them together lights something in Charles he didn’t know had extinguished.

Then, she looks to Charles, and he swallows. Each step comes heavy, and it feels like it takes him years to make it to the tide. It surges up to meet him, like running into an embrace. It licks up his shins, soaking his breeches through; but Charles welcomes it, drops his fingers to card through the swell as if he were petting an animal.

Erik watches him intently, as do the mermaids behind him. Charles looks out over Erik’s shoulder, and he sees Jean. Her red hair tumbles over her collar and chest, and her green eyes glint.

Charles looks back to Erik, to his warm smile, and Charles decides it’s the last time he’ll see Jean again.

Light clouds the water around his legs as they blend together, fusing into his long, blue tail. In the setting sunlight the scars are stark. Charles hopes that every mermaid in the water sees them, sees what he went through. Before, he’d decided they weren’t battle scars, weren’t to be worn with honour; but standing in the water before Erik, and his clan, and his citizens, he couldn’t be prouder.

Erik returns to the shore at Emma’s prompting, after she says, both telepathically and verbally, “In a symbol of peace, I give my _Q’ian’ee_ to the prince of Genosha’s lands.” Even though he’d been up to his waist in water he stands on the sand completely dry. He holds out his hand to Charles. With the sunlight pouring over him his features look younger, the worry lines etched into his forehead and around his mouth smooth. Years of frustration, denial, and loneliness put them there. Charles hopes there will never be a reason for more.

On instinct Charles moves to take a step with human legs -- and his tail lets him. Even though the tunic melted back into the foam and his breeches have shimmered away, even though he doesn’t know where his tail went or why, he follows Erik, finds it easy to ignore the crowd around them when Erik’s smiling at him like that.

The first step on the sand feels like walking on a cloud. The second step is pushed in time with the tide, which licks around his ankles. He feels lighter, softer. Charles hears gasps, feels amazement in the minds around him, but doesn’t realise it’s directed at him until Erik’s eyes widen and his mouth falls open and his mind sings.

Charles glances down at himself. Light blue shimmering sleeves cover down his arms to his hands. At his wrists are two long, sheer pieces of silver material connected to the back of-- the gown, Charles realises, seeing himself through Erik’s mind. A dress as blue as the sea and as green as Erik’s eyes, that clings to him like water would, draped over him from his shoulders to his bare feet.

As Charles stares down at his outstretched arms, something so light and yet so powerful bubbles up within him. He laughs, and then he thinks he might sob, but he looks up at Erik, and they could be two people sat beneath a copse of flowering trees, could be dying in a storm together, or standing in a fitting room of a hidden boutique, or lying side by side in a cold bed; but in this moment they’re two people who thought this would never happen In the future they’ll be known as _peace_ , an epithet to _truce,_ but right now they’re hope, and they’re luck, and they’re together.

 

Emma leaves no footprints as she walks up onto the sand and settles beside him. _This is what you want, isn’t it, Charles?_ She pushes a curl behind his ear.

 _More than anything,_ Charles admits, staring at Erik. He swallows. _I… I’ll come back. I promise I’ll come back._

 _Marko, Cain, nor your mother will be there when you do. I will make sure of it._ She leans forward and presses her lips to his forehead. She leaves a tingle beneath his skin. _Darkness only lasts the night. The sun will always rise and chase it away._

They watch each other in understanding for a quiet moment. She’s sad, Charles realises, and she suddenly looks like the lost girl in Erik’s pond, too scared of freedom. In the quiet seconds she allows Charles to see her vulnerability the sun has inched closer and closer to the horizon, and the burnt sky is cooling into purples and blues. “All who witness shall tell their children of this day, and they will tell their children. Genosha’s lands and Genosha’s seas will live in peace,” Emma declares, turning back to the crowd on the sand and in the water. “Coexisting together, like day and night.”

Charles doesn’t wait any longer. Every step he takes Erik mirrors, his mind and soul calling to him in a way Charles has been yearning for for weeks. His dress shimmers like the ocean surface as he rushes, and Charles is crashing into Erik, and Erik’s pulling him close and pushing one hand into his hair and the other against the small of Charles’ back.

 _I love you,_ Erik thinks, loud and free. _I always have._

When Erik kisses him Charles laughs, and behind them, the sun kisses the sea.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art masterpost: [[Here!](http://geertruis.tumblr.com/post/143844798631/art-master-post-when-the-sun-kisses-the-sea-by)] 
> 
> Thank you so much for all your comments. They make me so so so very happy, even if I don't get a chance to reply to them. I'm a bit better at replying over on my [tumblr](geertruis.tumblr.com) :)
> 
> At the end of next month I'll start posting an omake for this, to fill in the gaps I've left, flesh out the universe a bit more, and use up some art Thac made for me that I didn't use here, so look out for that if you're interested!


	10. Epilogue

The golden sand crunches beneath Erik’s boots, and he sinks slightly with every step. Their rockpools are hidden further away than perhaps Erik would like, but he forgets his soreness as soon as he spies the curve of the cliff obscuring the outcropping.

The leg brace wrapped around his left knee rattles as he hurries. A family nestled up on a sand dune watch him pass by with smiles and small bows, and the children giggle with the jingles of his steps, as if he were a dancer wearing bells around his wrists and ankles. Ever since the truce -- his marriage -- it’s not strange to find families and couples coming to the beach once again. Not long ago he came down to see two children playing in the seafoam, human and mermaid. Happiness had rolled from Charles for days after.

In the half hour it takes to arrive at the rockpools Erik has thought of nothing other than Charles. He’s been itching for this moment ever since he left that fruitless meeting with an agricultural minister from the mainland whom Erik suspects was more interested in the truce than in investing in alpaca wool farming here in Genosha. He isn’t surprised it’s spread: he’s the first human to marry a mermaid, a prince and a _Q’ian’ee_ at that, but when it takes away from valuable time Erik could have spent with his illustrious husband, Erik can’t help that he's tired of the rumours, gossip, and downright noseyness of people.

He skirts a piece of driftwood rather than stepping over it. He tries to keep a steady pace as he clambers down a dune-side. The cliffs are closer now, it won’t be much longer, and then he can take this silly brace off.

Though winter isn’t far off Charles still comes here every day. When he’s in his true form he doesn’t feel the cold, but Erik doesn’t have such luck. “We’ll stop coming to the beach once winter hits,” he always promises with a pout, and there isn’t anything Erik can do but huff and acquiesce.

Erik rounds the corner soon enough, and he scans the rockpools, searching for Charles. There’s no movement save for the gentle lap of water over rock, the trickling of it as it fills the cracks, crevices, and holes. Erik narrows his eyes. On one of the rocks higher up embedded in the sand lay Charles’ boots and dress, neatly folded. Erik taught him that. With a sigh, he tugs off his own boots.

He’s halfway done unbuttoning his work shirt when he hears the telltale splash of Charle’ tail crashing against the water. Erik grins, and fiddles with the buttons. He strips down to his underpants and folds the rest of his clothes alongside Charles’, boots flopping on the sand. He leans the metal brace against the rock. Then he creeps into the water. It bites at his ankles but he’s quick to adjust; he hears Charles giggling, and like something predatory Erik smiles with all his teeth and wades out into the rocks.

He’s been here enough times to know his footing. He knows these pools almost as well as he knows Charles’ body. Carefully skirting a rock about as tall as him -- whilst dutifully avoiding the mollusks dotting it -- Erik holds his breath. There’s something thrilling about it, knowing that Charles can see him. He wades his way into the middle of the pools, enclosed by more tall rocks, hidden from sight. His briefs cling to him indecently, so soaked and see-through.

Something brushes against his thigh, and Erik feigns fear. The water here is perfectly clear and tinged with blue, so he looks to the rocks, squinting against the sunlight. “Is someone here?” he wonders aloud, and behind him Charles hums. Then there’s a splash to his right, a soft laugh to his left. “Do I need to call for a knight?”

They’re too far away from the castle and the beach. Even with the balcony above them, Erik would be long drowned before anyone could make it to him.

“We’re completely alone,” Charles murmurs somewhere behind him. Water buffets against Erik’s back. “I could do anything I want to you.”

“Like what?” asks Erik, keeping still. He smiles despite their game, shivers when he feels Charles’ fin brush his calf.

Charles sets his hands on Erik’s shoulders, and then pulls him around. “Like keep you here so you can’t leave me,” he says with a frown.

“I’m sorry. It took longer than expected.” With the marigold sun beaming down on him his skin glitters, shimmering like the surface of the ocean. He’s wearing his necklaces and bangles. Erik hungrily watches the shift of muscle beneath skin as Charles shrugs.

Charles hums. “I haven’t seen you since this morning,” he laments. “I miss you too much.”

Erik slots his fingers into Charles’ hair, pushing the damp curls back. “But you had a good day?”

“Better now.” Erik rolls his eyes.

Charles’ tail wraps around his left leg tenderly. “And how was your day?”

“Long,” admits Erik as he leans forward and presses a kiss to Charles’ neck, then another on his shoulder. “I spent half of it considering running down here to find you.”

“You should have,” Charles murmurs, rolling his head to the side. As Erik kisses beneath his ear, Charles guides his hand to the front of his tail. He makes a soft noise when Erik’s fingers brush against the slickness concealed there, a different kind of wet from the water around them. “It’s been a long day for me, too.”

Erik’s fingers rub against his opening, and Charles leans forward til his forehead’s against his shoulder. He looses a shaky sigh. “Have you been alone all day?” Erik murmurs into his ear, fingers working gingerly. Connected as they are Erik feels Charles’ stirring arousal. A time ago he still felt guilty even kissing Charles, so innately convinced that he was wrong and Charles was too good for him; but they’ve been together for so long now, so many times, Erik only needs to hear Charles whimper into his neck to forget any doubts he may harbour.

“Is anyone around?” he murmurs into Charles’ hair. He keeps his other arm around Charles’ waist, and delights at the way he starts to shiver. The slip of his fingers is easy; he crooks them, middle and ring, and works against the sensitive parts of Charles in firm little circles.

“No one,” replies Charles breathily, and the pout is gone from his voice. When they’d married Charles told him mermaids never fucked for pleasure, only for offspring, and only with their mate. Anything else is taboo. Making love to Charles in both his human and his mermaid forms had been a lesson in patience for the both of them, but Erik had loved showing Charles all the thing he could feel only with Erik’s fingers, cock, tongue.

Since then he’s grown needy. Erik wakes to his touch most days, Charles’ hands either in his hair or down his pants. They fall asleep tangled together, fingers twined in hair and mouths pressed to sweaty skin. After all the time Erik spent lonely and Charles in the coiling dark, though, neither can be truly irritated with the proximity, never mind the fact that touching Charles anywhere feels so _good._

Charles wraps his tail around Erik’s good leg and supports himself. As Erik fingers him his hands chase the v of Erik’s waist and find themselves inside his briefs, and then the briefs are down around Erik’s thighs, and then Erik is gasping against Charles’ mouth as Charles works him.

It’s an easy slide in, and then easier to slide their tongues together as he slowly rocks into Charles. Charles’ tail lights up fantastically, flickering through ripples of blue and pink. His hands are ruining Erik’s tidy hair but Erik hardly cares, hissing his breaths and moaning quietly into Charles’ mouth. Charles squeezes his leg and grinds down against him, letting broken sounds spill from his flushed, open mouth, and it doesn’t take long for either of them to shudder and gasp and claw at each other’s skin through their climaxes

Erik lets Charles catch his breath before he slowly unwinds his tail and carries him to a small sandbank between the rocks. He lays down next to him in the sand. The sun is slowly creeping towards the ocean, but the air is mild enough that Erik doesn’t shiver. He still pulls Charles’ body to him anyway.

“You came in me again,” says Charles after a long time. Even if they don’t speak there’s never truly silence between them; Charles is a warm curl in his mind, a gentle whisper in his ear, a soft kiss on his mouth. “You want a baby.”

He rolls on top of Erik, settles his tail between his legs. His necklace falls onto Erik’s sternum. The contact buzzes. Charles looks at him with hiw blue eyes wide and earnest.

Children would be nice, Erik thinks. Perhaps three or four; a big family to supplement what Charles never had himself. “Would they be human or mermaid?” he wonders aloud.

“Maybe you could talk to Emma-” Erik begins, but Charles cuts him off with a _look._

“I am not going to ask the Queen of the Ocean to ensure our fertility.” Then he blanches. “What if she shuns me for being _a nymph_?”

Erik can’t help chuckling at his expression. He stares at the sand next to Erik’s head aghast, like he just realised he left the bath running. “The _Q’ian’ee,_ fucking humans for fun.” But a child would be nice. Children would be nice. He pushes the thought into their shared space.

Charles clicks his tongue and bats his shoulder. “Don’t be crass.” He settles down against Erik’s chest, head beneath his chin, and Erik traces lines up his back. “For now I want a nap.”

Erik breathes in his hair. He smells like salt and soap and like the sheets on Erik’s bed. “Don’t sleep too long. I’ll freeze.”

Charles hums like he’s entertaining the idea and Erik feels it along his collar. He shivers, but not because of the cold. “Wake me when the sun kisses the sea.”

* * *

 


End file.
